I will start by apologizing for posting this on Friday night and not Friday morning. My son has not been feeling well however so, my whole schedule had to be moved around.
Alright last week I started this new feature on my blog by discussing ways you can correct your exposure using your camera's settings before you even take the picture. What are you to do however if you have already taken the picture and you are not happy with it? Tonight I will explain two different free programs available for you to download that will allow to do small exposure adjustments. I already created this tutorial using the same photographs so, I am sorry for the lack of variety. ;)
Fixing (as much as possible) the picture in post processing or editing
The programs I will be using for all of my editing on here are Paint.net and GIMP and the reason is that they are free programs very similar to the mega editing program Adobe Photoshop. The difference however is that these programs do not read RAW files so they are only meant to be used by those of you who shoot JPEGS. However I do know that Google’s Picassa 3 (another free photo editing program that works great for organizing/sorting through your images) does read RAW files but, does not edit them the was Adobe RAW editor can. L
A note about correcting overexposed photographs:
If you correct your exposure by changing your camera's settings that I explained last Friday hopefully you will not have to worry about overexposed photographs which usually can not be fixed in the editing process like they could have been in the film days by exposing the photographic paper over and over to retrieve the detail that was lost in a darkroom using an enlarger. Unfortunately once you overexpose beyond a certain amount you are stuck with bright undefined areas; if this area is your sky or another unimportant part of the scene than it is not as big of a deal.
Fixing over exposure or underexposure in GIMP and Paint.net:
There are a few options you have when adjusting exposure in post processing.
A screen shot of the GIMP program
Screen shot of the Paint.net program
- Brightness/contrast: this rarely fixes severely underexposed or overexposed images because it adjusts the entire image (or what is called global adjustment). A good photograph (which goes back to black and white photography) has good tonal range of light, medium and dark values. The brightest and contrast option makes all values brighter instead of just adjusting the values that have lost the most detail.
- Levels: either program allows you to adjust the levels in a photograph. The nice thing about using this option rather than the brightness/contrast is you can adjust each value separately. The best place to start when using levels is to look for gaps of space on the right side or left side of the tonal range and adjust the sliders accordingly till the image looks right. Starting with the middle slider is the best place to start.
Levels in GIMP
Levels in Paint.net
- Curves: Curves is a method many photographers prefer to adjust exposure because it knocks back reds which can often be an issue with portraits (over red orange skin). Instead of using a histogram style graph it looks more like a line graph and just like starting with the middle slider is the best when adjusting levels you want to pull up in the middle of the arch of the line when using curves. To pop boring washed out pictures you can create an s-curve using curves.
Curves in GIMP
| Curves in Paint.net | |
A few last editing/post processing tips:
CHECK THE HISTOGRAM INSIDE THE PROGRAM WHICH WORKS JUST LIKE THE ONE FOUND INSIDE YOUR CAMERA.
-The dodge and burn (I only found inside GIMP) tools will allow you to lighten (dodge) or darken (burn) an area that is still under or over exposed after you have played with the levels, curves, or brightness/contrast. The higher your opacity however the more it will darken or lighten the pixels in that image.
-Remember the nice thing about these two programs is they allow for non-destructive editing that means you want to edit but, not actually physically alter the image until you are happy with your result. To do this DUPLICATE YOUR LAYERS AS YOU APPLY EACH EDIT. Simply right click and choose duplicate layer…
-When you work with multiple layers you have blending mode options which can also
help fix pictures which are not properly exposed.
Changing blending modes in Paint.net
*duplicating an image and applying the
multiply blending mode can help darken
overexposed images because it creates a
see transparent copy of the image
*duplicating and image and applying the
Screen blending mode can help brighten an
Underexposed image because it creates a
washed out lighter copy of the image over top.
Changing blending
*Using the overlay or soft light modes can help pop
a picture with washed out or blah tonal
range. It is similar to the S curve method
*experiment with other blending modes
To obtain many other results-sometimes
It is helpful to do a couple layers with a few
Different blending modes.
When finished you might want to flatten or merge
Your layers and save the file as a JPEG at the highest
Quality for prints or smaller for web (how to save for
Web can be covered later)
Here are my corrections to the original improper exposed examples at the beginning:
The underexposed photograph of the two babies I edited with Paint.net since it is easier to fix and does not need the use of the dodge and burn tools that GIMP offers.
Original
My edit
First I duplicated the layer for non-destructive editing and applied a levels adjustment by moving the middle slider slightly, duplicated the layer one more time and changed the blending mode to screen, duplicated the layer and applied a little contrast in the brightness/contrast menu, flattened and saved as a JPEG. Yes, the background detail is now lost but, the important subjects can be seen.
You could even go a tab bit brighter but, then noise will rear its ugly head and it appears a little washed out. I however prefer nice bright photographs…
I edited the overexposed photograph using GIMP because it has dodge and burn tools which can help slightly darken an overexposed area of a photograph. Remember however that once an area has gone past the point of no return by being too overexposed you are stuck so, here is my best fix.
Original
My Edit
I told you there is not much you can do to bring back detail in an overexposed digital photograph!
Since there is no detail left at all in the areas of the photograph that are severely overexposed a gray wash often occurs when trying to edit by duplicating layers adding a curves adjustment to take down the contrast slightly and duplicating the layer once again to add a grain extract blending mode to tone down the overexposed areas. Another reminder why it is better to not overexpose your photograph while taking the picture!
Well that concludes this Flip your Photo Friday. Remember I want to hear from you and what tips/tutorials you would like to see on here.
Stay tuned for a few cutie pies as well when I get a chance to post their photo sessions...
Stay tuned for a few cutie pies as well when I get a chance to post their photo sessions...
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