Very dark photo needs fixing

R
Posted By
ross
Apr 10, 2004
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582
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6
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Closed
I have photos that are very dark and I need to lighten/brighten them. How would I approach this, please? I have Photoshop 7.0 I appreciate this newsgroup. Dick Ross
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dark fix

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SI
stupid_idiot
Apr 10, 2004
read your manual about curves.

"ross" wrote in message
I have photos that are very dark and I need to lighten/brighten them. How would I approach this, please? I have Photoshop 7.0 I appreciate this newsgroup. Dick Ross

MR
Mike Russell
Apr 10, 2004
ross wrote:
I have photos that are very dark and I need to lighten/brighten them. How would I approach this, please? I have Photoshop 7.0 I appreciate this newsgroup. Dick Ross

If you’re mainly concerned with one image, rather than the general technique, put one of your images up on a web page, perhaps some of us will take a crack at it. Or join the curvemeister group and upload one of your images for the group to work on as part of the "Making Bad Images Better" aka "Misfortunate Pictures" series.
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Curvemeister/

If these are slides or negatives, you may get a lot of benefit from re-scanning them, or having a service bureau scan them. This is especially true for underexposed slides – consumer scanners do a poor job on them.

Scanning aside, you probably already tried using levels, dragged down the white triangle, and got too harsh a result, right?

The simplest prescription for underexposed files is to dup the layer, and set the mode of the new layer to Screen. Repeat if necessary, and back off the top layer’s transparency if it goes too far.

That said, there are other tools and procedures to deal with underexposed images. Try converting to Lab mode and playing only with the L channel – I recommend curves but you can get a similar result with Levels. This will change overall brightness without introducing a color cast – solving the problem I mentioned in the opening question.

Just to mention some other techniques. If one channel contains no useful information, or if you have a large color cast, mixing channels is a good way to get a useable image that retains color information. If the shadows are noisy, a shadow mask, combined with dust & scratches can greatly improve the image.

Grab a book by Dan Margulis if you want to learn more.

—

Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com
www.geigy.2y.net
U
Uni
Apr 10, 2004
ross wrote:
I have photos that are very dark and I need to lighten/brighten them. How would I approach this, please? I have Photoshop 7.0 I appreciate this newsgroup. Dick Ross

Why not post an example photo somewhere, so we can have a look/try?

Uni

MR
Mike Russell
Apr 11, 2004
ross wrote:
I have photos that are very dark and I need to lighten/brighten them. How would I approach this, please? I have Photoshop 7.0 I appreciate this newsgroup. Dick Ross

Ross,

I’ve added your image to the "Misfortunate Images" tutorial I’m working on.

The tutorial may be used with or without the Curvemeister plugin, and there is a curve file there that you can download and use on your original image.

http://www.curvemeister.com/tutorials/misfortunate/

—
Mike Russell
www.curvemeister.com
www.geigy.2y.net
L
langerhands
Apr 11, 2004
open the image, press ctrl and M then click the middle of the diaganal line and drag it up and left.

"ross" wrote in message
I have photos that are very dark and I need to lighten/brighten them. How would I approach this, please? I have Photoshop 7.0 I appreciate this newsgroup. Dick Ross

DR
Don Richard
Apr 11, 2004
Try using the auto fix commands in program first
Here is sample I did in less than 5 mins
Auto levels auto color and auto contrast
I then cut and pasted person into new backgroud choosing color from original Hope this helps

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