Correcting Contrast

[Ironwood]

On cloudy and overcast days the camera doesn't always see things the way we do.  Sometimes just a little thing like adding a touch of contrast to your photos will do a world of good.  A long time internet friend sent this to me the other day and asked what she needed to do to the photo.  My friend lives just south of Nashville, TN.


She took this photo on a pretty heavily overcast day.  She said the color's were brilliant.  She knew the photo needed something, just didn't know for sure what.

[Dryball]

Can this photo be corrected after it's taken Gene? Not by an expert but by the photographer?

Ned

[Ironwood]

Ned I was wishing someone would ask.  :)  As you can see the photo is very "flat" and "muddy"  You can barely tell what the water is.  Even though the scene was beautiful the camera didn't see it that way. 

All I had to do was pop the photo into my photo editor.  My photo editor has been around since dirt was invented.  It's Adobe Photo Deluxe Home Edition 4.0.   Anyway back to the photo.  I put the photo in my photo editor and clicked on "instant fix"  I'm sure they use different words to describe the same thing now days.  Here's what that one click did.

[Ironwood]

Some time the "instant fix" will over fix it.  It almost over fixed this photo.  If you want to correct it more... You can go into your manual fixes.  Add and subtract your contrast.  Change the brightness, sharpen, crop and resize.  Of course with all of these you need to take it a little bit at a time.  Each one affects the other.   Give it a try.  It's fun.  :)

[Dryball]

Thanks Gene, one more question...does it make a difference on whether your using film or digital?

Ned

[Ironwood]

Ned using film you will have to scan the photo to your computer.  Some scanners do a little editing on their own. 

I've often had people ask, "Isn't that cheating".  Heck no.  I'm not trying to add anything to the scene that wasn't already there.  Just correcting what the camera messed up.  I'm changing what the camera saw to what I saw.  After all that's why she took the photo in the first place.  I really liked that scene.

Even in the photo of the Preacher with his hog.  In the Photo Editor Stuff thread.  I didn't do anything but add some leaves and some trees to the photo.  I didn't change the theme of the photo.  I just corrected my bad framing. :)