I snapped this shot before the external flash had recharged, and could barely see the subject when I opened it. My first impulse was to hit the delete key, but I decided to see if Photoshop could bring it to life.

http://www.pbase.com/image/29215452.jpg

I used a technique described by Scott Kelby in his wonderful book, "Photoshop for Digital Photographers". I created a duplicate layer, and blended it with the background layer using [screen] mode.

http://www.pbase.com/image/29215453.jpg

That was encouraging, but not nearly good enough, so I continued creating duplicate layers by hitting the key combination [ctrl + J]. Note: the blending method is automatically carried over to the duplicate layers.

After I had added a total of 5 duplicate layers, the subject, a hummingbird taken against a black background, began to look reasonable.

http://www.pbase.com/image/29215454.jpg

Now I had enough to work with using normal techniques. I flattened the layers, and used levels adjustments and sharpening to get this view of a pretty critter.

http://www.pbase.com/image/29215455.jpg

I have a lot of hummingbird pics, and this won't make my top 10 list, but I've used this technique to rescue one-of-a-kind shots, and am happy to have it in my toolkit. It works for both Photoshop and Photoshop Elements, and I'd imagine for any editing program that employs layers. You can even use it for selective area brightening, by erasing the portions of the duplicate layer that you want left as-is. Hope you find it useful.

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Warm regards, Uncle Frank,
FCAS Charter Member, Hummingbird Hunter, Egret Stalker
Dilettante Appassionato
Gallery at www.pbase.com/unclefrank/coolpix