Well, Im still learning, and probably always will. But one thing Ive discovered about Photoshop is that theres always several different ways to do the same thing. One person says do it like this, and someone else says, Thats stupid, do it like that! Use curves or instead color balance & contrast? The results can be identical. With that being said, heres how I bring up levels in a photograph where some areas are already so bright that theyll lose image detail if you turn up the contrast or brightness by even a small amount. BTW, I use 5.5, will get 6 soon. Click the Magic Wand on the bright area. Adjusting the tolerance of the wand will affect the amount of area chosen. Clicking select/similar will further expand the chosen area, and also select similar levels in the picture separated from your first area. Then go select/feather. The size of the photograph will determine the amount of feather desired. Feather softens the edges enough to prevent the eye from detecting a level change line. Experiment to see the difference. Thank God for History (Window/Show History). After you mess it up, go back and delete your errors! Then open the Layers window, and right click on the layer. Choose Layer Via Copy. Now the chosen bright area is a separate layer, and you can adjust the background layer (entire picture) without affecting the bright area. You can do more than one Layer Via Copy. I also use it to bring up the contrast in a photograph when the dark areas are OK, but the mid and upper levels need a push. That way, when you turn up the contrast, the detail will not go away in the darker areas, where as if you had just turned up the contrast, the dark detail may have turned to solid black. Hope this helps! marshall