Ok guys. I need your help. I shot this Southbound BNSF Grain Train coming into Fremont,Neb on Friday June 30th. I was on the East side of the Train where as you can tell by the sun angle. How do I brighten up these Photo’s? I use a Digital Sony DSC-S600 Camera. I can brighten up my Photos. But I just don’t know where to set it at. Thanks,Allan.
In camera, you need to find your exposure compensation adjustment, and then play with it in the plus range until it looks right. +1 would probably be about there, but the easiest way to tell is to experiment.
In photoshop, find the brightness/contrast window and slide the brightness control to the right until it looks good. In my experience, this usually doesn’t look as good as exposing it properly to begin with, but it can salvage an otherwise useless photo.
Ben is right. Using your histogram is the best option for getting exposure correct in a digital shot. Simply take a shot of your scene before the train gets there, and see where you need to go from there.
Also, on overcast shots like this one, it’s best to leave the sky out of the image as much as possible. It doesn’t add to the shot (in fact it detracts quite a bit) but it also fools you camera’s light meter quite a bit. Try to eliminate the sky by finding a taller background (like a stand of trees or a building), or get higher than the train (like at an overpass) and shoot down on it, so the ground is more dominant.
The one benefit of cloudy day shooting is that the light is nice and even, and colors can pop, if you get your exposure and white balance correct.
As to the shots above, you might be able to work on them a little in an image editing program, but I don’t think they’ll ever look like you want them to. Just take it as a lesson and try to use that in the future.
As in another recent thread the problem is that the sky is determining the image exposure. As a result you have a well exposed sky, but everything else is off because the weighting was given to the sky.
You can make some adjustments using Photoshop levels or curves. Basically, the idea is that you let the sky wash-out to gain exposure of the main image elements since the sky is not the subject. The blue hump on the right is mostly sky. By moving the white point setting left to the edge of the main hump, you’re adjusting image brightness for the main elements.
You could also aim the camera at the ground and use the built-in meter to get a reading, then set the camera to that exposure manually to get a good starting point. Which answers the question as to why it is most desirable to buy a camera that can be operated in manual mode.
While they have value at kids’ birthday parties, shooting under difficult conditions is nearly impossible with fully-brainless (point-and-shoot) cameras. And in my experience, perfect shooting days come only about one-eighth of the time.
If using Photoshop to repair underexposed photos or photos with shadows – without blowing out the sky – try the “Dodge Tool.”
Or you could buy a gradational filter [blue or brown] to de-emphasize the sky.
Actually, I gave the quick and dirty answer. By selecting the sky and inverting the selection and applying the above to the scene only, you can avoid washing-out the sky.
“Yeah. I’m not even sure if all PS versions have a Dodge Tool. I have the industrial-strength version.”
I have Elements 2.0 and have the dodge/burn tools. Since mine is a couple years out of date, I’m sure that more current versions have at the very least the same tool set.
I’ve been tempted before to upgrade, but since all I ever work with are film scans from my cheap Canon flatbed, I haven’t seen much point.
Now that I have a valid college ID, I could probably get either Elements 4.0 or CS2 at a significant discount, and may do that depending on how much that significant discount is.
Be advised that CS II is a major memory hog. I’d actually look around for a version of PS7. It has just about all of the features of CS and CSII (although there are a couple neat upgrades…), plus is compatible with most plug-ins. You can buy a registered copy fairly cheaply, and then get the CSII Upgrade if you really feel the need.
Elements 4.0 might suit your needs, but I really can’t tell you too much about it, since I’ve never used any version of Elements.
Starting with the CS upgrade, PS has included a feature in the image adjustment sub-menu called Shadows-Highlights or something to that effect. Judicious use of that function (it has some quirks you have to be aware of) can take a scene like Allan’s and snap it up considerably, keeping the sky detail or even enhancing it while bringing up the shadow detail.
I worked the image for a couple of minutes and took the camel’s hump histogram like eastside’s post and changed it into a more Gaussian (for you mathemeticians) type of distribution, which visually had lots of shadow details and kept the sky from washing out. You can use dodge/burn or the history brush screen/multiply functions to do the same thing, or other corrections using correction layers and masking off the areas you don’t want to correct, etc.
There’s a lot of stuff you can do in Photoshop, more than any one person can completely assimilate (IMHO), but that’s the great thing about it. You can find something to work for you and that’s all that is really necessary.
WOW. I love how you did that. Very interesting. Is that program Downloadable? I just love how it realy brightens up the Photo. Thanks. Ill keep learning more. Allan.
Believe me, learning PS takes a big investment in time. If you don’t know PS already, get PSE and save a bundle. Then there are programs from other vendors (suggested above) that have fewer features but can do the job.
You can also get GIMP free off the internet. It does a lot that Photoshop does, though the user interface isn’t as pretty.
By the way, Photoshop Elements 4.0 retails for $100, and the full version(CS2) sells for $600. The academic version of Elements is $70, and CS2 $300. For what you’re doing, CS2 is definitely overkill, and even an older(cheap) version of Elements would do you fine. As I said, I have 2.0 that, for the most part, has yet to fail me.
Don’t know if it’s still available, and there are those annoying nagscreens, but look for LViewPro. Simple - not fancy tools, but you can do some adjustments and sometimes rescue an otherwise “bad” picture. It’s also very handy for cropping and resizing pictures - a useful tool indeed, especially if your camera turns out some big files and you want to make them little files.
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