Beginner Photos mostly always too dark

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Lilbear

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Edit My Images
Yes
I dont know if im posting it in the right section, so apologies if I did.

So im not sure if its me or my camera or maybe even my laptop screen but I find my photos always are a bit too dark.

I shoot in raw and for this example (I know its not the best photo but its just an example lol) I used the av setting with iso set on auto. It went through LR with no editing apart from being set to camera neutral.


Any advice?

004-1-5 by Nati81, on Flickr
 
Laptop screens aren't the best for photo editing, the lighting usually changes depending at what angle you look at the screen.
Can make a huge difference to the photograph if you aren't looking straight at the screen.
 
Looks quite close to correct to me.
Looking at your exif data, no exposure compensation, ISO 100, f2.8, 1/250s

How about putting some exposure compensation on, say +1, if you are not happy with your usual results?
 
oh, that's my favourite lens, I use it quite a lot lol When I try to lighten the photo up I end up blowing the highlights, so I just cant seem to get it right.

Im getting a new screen once I can make my mind up which one I want lol

Maybe me editing in a fairly dark room affects the way I see the pics?!

I will try the exposure compensation next time and see how that will turn out.
 
Maybe it's your laptop screen?

The other pics on your photostream look correct.
 
The other pics have been edited in lightroom and photoshop on my laptop too.

Raw files tend to be on the dark side I think in the first place. I tried shooting in raw + jpeg before and I think the jpegs were all a bit brighter in comparison.
 
I agree with the above, I see vignetting but also some pincushion distortion. A bit of fiddling with lens profile correction in lightroom will sort these. The dogs face is nicely exposed.

Have you thought about connecting an external monitor to your laptop? It's possible with most models, either via D-SUB, DVI or HDMI connectors.

Beautifil dog, by the way. :clap:
 
It's maybe half a stop under, but that's not a lot for matrix metered. I tend to have my Canons set at +1/3 or 2/3 all the time, because Canons meters try to protect from highlights blowing. The shot would have benefited from contrastier light, but other than that and whats been said above theres nothing particularly wrong with it.

Laptop screens though? I would never trust one for photo editing.
 
yes, I was looking into getting the Dell UltraSharp U2713H Monitor. But im not sure if that's the best choice??

Thanks, shes a great dog :)
 
I do all my editing on my PC screen. I tried once on a laptop and as has been mentioned, everything changes the moment you move the screen or your head,
 
well, I guess my next purchase will be a monitor lol I was saving up for some studio lights but I suppose getting the pictures right on the screen first is more important !! :)
 
Looks ok to me on my PC screen - if anything the smallest amount underexposed...

As others have said either add some exp compensation or just increase in LR and tweak the highlights/shadows accordingly.. (y)
 
Lilbear said:
oh, that's my favourite lens, I use it quite a lot lol When I try to lighten the photo up I end up blowing the highlights, so I just cant seem to get it right.

Im getting a new screen once I can make my mind up which one I want lol

Maybe me editing in a fairly dark room affects the way I see the pics?!

I will try the exposure compensation next time and see how that will turn out.
Click to expand...

I have the same lens and really like it but find it requires good light in certain circumstances.
 
Phil V said:
It's maybe half a stop under, but that's not a lot for matrix metered. I tend to have my Canons set at +1/3 or 2/3 all the time, because Canons meters try to protect from highlights blowing. The shot would have benefited from contrastier light, but other than that and whats been said above theres nothing particularly wrong with it.
Click to expand...

+1

Laptop screens though? I would never trust one for photo editing.
Click to expand...

If you're as careful about choosing one as any other monitor, and careful about viewing angle, I don't see why they should be any worse than another LCD panel. My ASUS laptop has a semi-matte display which covers over 99% of sRGB, and that's way better than most stand-alone monitors.
 
juggler said:
...If you're as careful about choosing one as any other monitor, and careful about viewing angle, I don't see why they should be any worse than another LCD panel. My ASUS laptop has a semi-matte display which covers over 99% of sRGB, and that's way better than most stand-alone monitors.
Click to expand...
If you're careful certainly.
But it's not that easy to be careful, because they're rarely an optional upgrade even, so if you've picked your laptop based on all the other important criteria, you're likely to end up with a fairly iffy monitor. The biggest problem with them isn't the gamut, it's the inconsistency with viewing angles, which is made worse because of the way lots of people use them, whereas most of us by the time we've realised a decent monitor is important have realised that having a decent environment to work in is important too.

I don't consider myself a 'perfectionist', but I only edit in daylight or in the dark. The room lights are never on when I'm editing. Perfectionists use calibraters that measure the ambient, use daylight bulbs and even paint the wall behind their screens neutral grey.
 
realspeed said:
I use a dell Ultrasharp 2312HM IPS monitor.Big advantage is the screen does not fade at the side whichever angle viewed from
This shows difference from IPS to TN monitor. Well worth watching

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWXcNlh85Ps
Click to expand...


I actually noticed this. I got a cheap IPS on gumtree for my house. In comparison stuff at work looks terrible on the TN panel. OK the IPS isn;'t up to editing standard but it's much better. The colours seem to be better represented and as you said there isn't a colour shiftor much anyway when looking a different angles.
 
Dblock said:
I actually noticed this. I got a cheap IPS on gumtree for my house. In comparison stuff at work looks terrible on the TN panel. OK the IPS isn;'t up to editing standard but it's much better. The colours seem to be better represented and as you said there isn't a colour shiftor much anyway when looking a different angles.
Click to expand...

I don't move around much while editing so variation with angle isn't much of an issue. Ok, some TN panels are terrible, but all the IPS panels I've seen have had an incredibly glossy finish and that makes judging shadow detail really tricky (for me).
 
juggler said:
I don't move around much while editing so variation with angle isn't much of an issue. Ok, some TN panels are terrible, but all the IPS panels I've seen have had an incredibly glossy finish and that makes judging shadow detail really tricky (for me).
Click to expand...

I can't do processing on glossy screens for the same reason.
 
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