Light adjustment?

gillybean103

gillybean103

Messages
88
Edit My Images
No
Me again

you are being so helpful i keep thinking of things to ask

i have just opened this photo
IMG_3951.jpg


which could be lovely, but it's not. How do i lighten it up?
 
Unless you shoot RAW then I'm afraid you aren't going to get much better at photoshop because you'll be very limited with that you can do to a photo.

Don't be scared of anything. Just give it a try and you'll soon learn. If you shot in RAW then you could turn the exposure up a notch to lighten up the picture and recover some detail in the darker areas. In JPG all you can do is play with th brightness and contrast.
 
Right well i'll have to give it a go then and see what happens with it, i think i'm just scared in case i take a photo and sit there with photoshop with a blank expression a bit like the one i have now and don't know what to do to improve it and i think you will all get fed up with me asking for help
 
Hope you dont mind,i had a little go with PS.

IMG_3951.jpg
 
gillybean103 said:
which could be lovely, but it's not. How do i lighten it up?
Click to expand...
There's plenty of ways of lightening it up, but the most important question is why you would want to. I think it works quite well as it is.

Admittedly the bottom half of our two ladies is quite dark, but there's not a great deal you could do without drawing attention to the people and objects in the background. A quick fiddle in Photoshop results in something like this that could be much improved upon with some more time and care taken over it.

img3951se0.jpg
 
gillybean103 said:
Right well i'll have to give it a go then and see what happens with it, i think i'm just scared in case i take a photo and sit there with photoshop with a blank expression a bit like the one i have now and don't know what to do to improve it and i think you will all get fed up with me asking for help
Click to expand...

The basics of photoshop really aren't that difficult once you get to grips with it. I had been using Paint Shop Pro 7 for years until I got a copy of CS3 this summer. They are very different but have some of the same basic functionality. Once you learn how to crop, resize, lighten/darken, select areas, saturate/desaturate and adjust levels and curves then you are on your way. Gradually as you use it more then you'll get to know more of the thousands of features the software has. I learn something new everytime I use it and I know I'll be learning for years to come yet.

Start off by going out and taking some totally meaningless photos in RAW then just play with them in Bridge and Photoshop. If the actual photo means nothing to you then you won't be too bothered about getting anything wrong and if you do get it wrong either close without saving or press ctrl+alt+Z to undo the last few steps.

Photography is only scary is you have a camera pointed at you, get behind the camera and it's fun, fun, fun!!!
 
Hi Gill,

Here's another option. Quick and dirty I'm afraid but it puts the focus firmly on the ladies rather than the lads at the bar. Could do with the hi-res Jpeg/Raw to do the job properly but you'll get the idea from the jpeg.

Happy to go through the details if anyone's interested in a "How to..."

TheLadies.jpg
 
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