Help!! Exposure problem

dktruckley

Hi, Everyone. I take photos for a local band, and was wondering if there was a way to adjust the exposure for multiple photos at once. I take about 200 pics a show and the lighting is difficult at times. Is there a way to adjust all the photos at once in photoshop CS2 or is there a plugin I can use. I`m lost, I have tried to research this issue but haven`t come up with anything yet? Help!! Thanks; Dennis

Rhuarc

Hello, and welcome to DGrin!! First off a little background, what are you shooting with, are you shooting in RAW or in JPEG, etc... If you are shooting in RAW then you can do a change to the first shot, then load the rest of the shots and click do previous conversion. If you are only using JPEG then I think you would have to use the batch mode and actions in photoshop to do what you need.

pathfinder

If the lighting is exactly the same from shot to shot, you can use the same settings in all of the RAW conversions. Even better would be to use a WHi Blance card or an Expo disc if you can put them in the light that is illuminating the band.

But from your post I get the strong feeling that the lighting is constantly changing in some way from frame to frame - then you will need to correct each image independently .

dktruckley

Rhuarc wrote:

Hello, and welcome to DGrin!! First off a little background, what are you shooting with, are you shooting in RAW or in JPEG, etc... If you are shooting in RAW then you can do a change to the first shot, then load the rest of the shots and click do previous conversion. If you are only using JPEG then I think you would have to use the batch mode and actions in photoshop to do what you need.

Thanks for the reply. I shoot jpeg. But I could shoot RAW if its going to make the process alot easier and quicker. Thanks again!!

dktruckley

I`m using a Nikon D100

wxwax

dktruckley wrote:

Thanks for the reply. I shoot jpeg. But I could shoot RAW if its going to make the process alot easier and quicker. Thanks again!!

Shooting RAW will help make each final shot better. You'll be able to make exposure and white balance adjustments.

But it's not easier, it adds several more steps to your workflow.

My guess is that you'll have to adjust each image individually, because in my experience, lighting changes pretty dramatically, even in small venues.

pathfinder

bump

jfriend

Several choices

dktruckley wrote:

Hi, Everyone. I take photos for a local band, and was wondering if there was a way to adjust the exposure for multiple photos at once. I take about 200 pics a show and the lighting is difficult at times. Is there a way to adjust all the photos at once in photoshop CS2 or is there a plugin I can use. I`m lost, I have tried to research this issue but haven`t come up with anything yet? Help!! Thanks; Dennis

If you shoot RAW, you can use Adobe Bridge in CS2/CS3 to very quickly make adjustments to any group of photos. It's trivial to adjust one photo to your liking and then apply that set of changes to hundreds of other photos (you can do it in under a minute).

If you shoot JPEG, you can try either the trial version of Adobe Lightroom or the beta version of CS3 which both provide similar multiple adjustment capabilities on JPEG files as CS2 Adobe Bridge does for RAW files.

If you want to stay with JPEG and CS2, then you'd have to create a CS2 action that would apply some constant exposure adjustment (probably a curve) to each photo that you select. This process is doable, but not nearly as easy as the above options.

If what you really need to do is to tweak the exposure of each image individually (you can't apply the same change to all of them) and you are looking for the most efficient tools to do that, then you probably want to shoot RAW and use Adobe Bridge in CS2/CS3, but you could also try out Adobe Lightroom.

If most of your photos are off, you might also want to consider improving your metering technique so you can get the images more "on" in the camera and not need so much adjustment in post processing. With a combination of an understanding of metering modes, the zone exposure techniques and constant looking at your histogram, you can get pretty good right out of the camera.

I personally switched to RAW 2-1/2 years ago because I could process hundreds of images from school and sports events lots faster and with better results than I could with JPEG images. But, there are now new versions of software making similar tools available for processing JPEG images (Lightroom, CS3 and others).

ReWrite

You'll still get better results if you shoot RAW though. A raw file will retain more detail in the highlights and shadow areas than what's actually displayed in any given rendition of the shot generally, so when you apply things like fill light or highlight recovery in Lightroom (1.0 is an awesome tool by the way), you have more to work with.

spider-t

DxO

dktruckley wrote:

Hi, Everyone. I take photos for a local band, and was wondering if there was a way to adjust the exposure for multiple photos at once. I take about 200 pics a show and the lighting is difficult at times. Is there a way to adjust all the photos at once in photoshop CS2 or is there a plugin I can use. I`m lost, I have tried to research this issue but haven`t come up with anything yet? Help!! Thanks; Dennis

When I have a lot of photos that need a little help (especially indoor events in dark venues) I'll run the whole batch through DxO. And I shoot jpg for those types of events, but you can shoot raw if you feel like it. It's the same workflow for raw and jpg:

- delete all the photos that suck
- open all the rest in DxO
- set it up your favorite way
- start the batch
- make yourself a cup of coffee
- come back later and 80-90% of the images have improved

This is not a high touch way to do your photo handling. It's not what I do for my fine art work. But I find it a fantastic tool.

-Trish