Pic and settings help please

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Deleted member 27472

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OK.
First play with the nifty 50 and I have problems.
My question has 2 parts.
1st, how is the best way to recover this photo?
2nd. What can I do to get it right next time? All my photos seem slightly dark.
Camera 20D.Set on evaluative metering. AWB
 
What time of day was the pic taken? The light looks a bit low. Maybe cloudy or shade white balance mode will help. Pic looks sharp though.
 
Was this evening at 6pm.
I am new to all this and am trying to understand. When you say cloudy or shade white balance, is that a PS edit tool?
 
Perhaps you metered on something lighter than your subject?

Had a go at recovering the pic. Used levels, lightened the eyes and used a Nik Gold Reflector. Also, Topaz denoise to soften the skin. Downside is bg gets a bit too bright.
img3336ijfr800.jpg
 
I'm not a great deal further ahead of you, so no worries.

I'm not familiar with your camera, but if you select AWB in the main display screen (try it in manual mode) you will get several options, two of them being cloudy and shade. Also,try spot and centre weighted metering to see what results you get.
 
The image could have been improved by either using fill in flash or a reflector to bump some light onto the little girls face (a piece of white card would be ideal if you haven't got a lastolite or similar). but as driver wedge says a centre weighted metering as the subject is central would have produce a better exposed subject
 
Tried to recover the bg by selecting the subject, inverse the selection, levels and then filling any white with blue using the paintbrush.
img3336ijfr800-1.jpg
 
Thank you so much for that NigelPaul.
In laymans terms, how did you do it?
I have elements 8
 
Thank you so much for that NigelPaul.
In laymans terms, how did you do it?
I have elements 8
Click to expand...
I wish I knew how to do those video tutorials for PS. To explain things to you any different than I have I would find very difficult. Although one thing you may not have realised is Nik is a company with a various assortment of plug-ins as is Topaz. These need to be purchased, but both have 30 day trials.

From the limited amount of exif data, I understand that you took the picture in Raw format. You may be able to do a better job than I with the Raw file, rather than manipulating a low res jpeg as I did.

Sorry, but I am not confident enough to explain things any different....I'm not a PS expert and thought it was already in laymans terms, but realise that my laymans terms differ from someone else's expectations.

I am sure however that if you use levels and the dodge and burn tools you will get a bettr result than the original.

If you still have trouble, and wish me to edit the pic you can send me the Raw file and I'll give it a go. Obviously, however, you wish to learn and I'm sorry I am unable to teach unless I was able to show you on the computer with you sitting next to me.
 
All taken in and will practice.
At least I know it can be done.
I need to stop taking that kind of shot really and learn the camera basics rather than the PS tweeks
 
As I said I am no photoshop expert. Most of what I know were learnt from video tutorials which came with Digital Photo Magazine, plus some I purchased from the contributors,
David Rowley http://davro-digital.com/?page_id=3648 and Gavin Hoey www.gavtrain.com/training.html.

There is plenty of stuff on the WWW if you google..eg youtube http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=PS...tf8&rlz=&redir_esc=&ei=BAjzS-W6G5Lu0gTnsLCbDQ and http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ph...tf8&rlz=&redir_esc=&ei=VwjzS5L0BZv40wT7__2dDQ

There is some written tutorials on this forum somewhere I believe too. Not sure that you will be able to do everything in Elements 8. but you should hopefully find something.
 
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