Levels may sound like a complicated concept in photo editing but it really isn't difficult. Levels just refers to adjusting the level of light and dark areas of an image. There are multiple ways to do this in most photo editing (digital darkroom) software but the quickest and easiest is levels. The image shown above is an example of before and after level adjustments. The before image on the left is dull and dark when compared to the level adjusted right side of the image.