i just tried playing around with an underexposed photo with photoshop contrast n brightness settings.... i managed to make the picture bright enough n it still looks ok (to a complete amatuer like me). i'd like to ask, will this new picture be as good as a picture that was properly exposed?
Photoshop editting vs real-time settings...
- Thread starter shuy
- Start date
- Status
It all depends on how severely the underexposure is, camera used, whether shot on RAW mode, etc. In any case, using Brightness/Contrast is not quite the way to salvage the pic. You might want to play with levels and curves instead, where you can get more control.
Regards
CK
I've recently discovered the wonders of raw mode after Bibble 2002 (raw converter) was released. Bibble has an exposure compensation function and as far as i can see, i can actually compensate +/- 1 stop without ill effect (except for a few rare situations where there is colour shift... maybe this will be corrected in a later version of bibble) . the proviso seems to be that you should be shooting at a relatively low-noise iso like 200....
quite a few prosumer digicams are starting to offer raw modes.. (CP5000/5700?) something to look out for.
hmm.... what does raw mode mean? uncompressed?
also, what's levels and curves?
sorry, i'm a beginner
also, what's levels and curves?
sorry, i'm a beginner
M
Midnight
Guest
Raw output is, well, the raw output data direct from the camera's sensor, without any post-processing at all. Unfortunately, this format is unusable without further adjustments and conversions, so it's kinda troublesome unless you really need to maximise what you get from your camera. Raw output also tends to be smaller than TIFF files. Not all cameras have this option, though, and different brands have different file formats for their raw output.
As for Levels and Curves, these are the more commonly used controls in Photoshop, under the same Image->Adjustments menu as Brightness/Contrast. To add on to CK's advice, I would actually recommend always trying Auto Levels (Ctrl-Shift-L) or, if you have PS7, Auto-Color (Ctrl-Shift-B) first. Often the results will be pretty impressive already, and you then make fine adjustments using Levels or Curves.
Do note that most digicams tend to have a lot of noise (especially in the blue color channel) in darker regions of their images, so "brightening up" these areas will also tend to amplify the noise. On the other hand, there's no way to salvage an over-exposed digital photo, because those pixel values will be "maxed out" and thus the image detail will be irrecoverably lost. So nothing beats getting the exposure right in the field in the first place.
As for Levels and Curves, these are the more commonly used controls in Photoshop, under the same Image->Adjustments menu as Brightness/Contrast. To add on to CK's advice, I would actually recommend always trying Auto Levels (Ctrl-Shift-L) or, if you have PS7, Auto-Color (Ctrl-Shift-B) first. Often the results will be pretty impressive already, and you then make fine adjustments using Levels or Curves.
Do note that most digicams tend to have a lot of noise (especially in the blue color channel) in darker regions of their images, so "brightening up" these areas will also tend to amplify the noise. On the other hand, there's no way to salvage an over-exposed digital photo, because those pixel values will be "maxed out" and thus the image detail will be irrecoverably lost. So nothing beats getting the exposure right in the field in the first place.
Read from some books that you can actually compensate around +/- 0.3EV in PS without much problems. Can go up to +/- 0.7EV but may have some slight artifacts. Therefore, if you are bracketing shots, try bracketing in 0.7EV intervals, in that case, you are sure that you are always only 0.3EV away from your desired exposure at most.
- Status
Similar threads
