Take a shot

erikadorie

I made a gallery in my smugmug website for you to come look at and try to fix some lighting issues and such in these photos I took. Alot of my pole vaulting pictures were too dark and I'd really like to keep alot of them! Please take a look and tell me how to fix them or even try yourself when you get the time. Thanks so much

Here's the link http://erikadorie.smugmug.com/gallery/2566472#135059968

THanks so much!

erikadorie

jfriend

I worked on one

erikadorie wrote:

I made a gallery in my smugmug website for you to come look at and try to fix some lighting issues and such in these photos I took. Alot of my pole vaulting pictures were too dark and I'd really like to keep alot of them! Please take a look and tell me how to fix them or even try yourself when you get the time. Thanks so much

Here's the link http://erikadorie.smugmug.com/gallery/2566472#135059968

THanks so much!

erikadorie

I worked on one of them.

• Noise Reduction
• Strong curve to restore brightness
• Rotate to straighten
• Crop

This is what the original looked like:

erikadorie

jfriend wrote:

I worked on one of them.

• Noise Reduction
• Strong curve to restore brightness
• Rotate to straighten
• Crop

This is what the original looked like:

WOW that is much better!!!! All I have is Photoshop Elements how can I achieve the same results?

ratcheer

Here is one I did very quickly in The GIMP, which is free software, by quickly building a 100% contrast overlay mask. That was the only change I made.

Tim

jfriend

Try levels in Elements

erikadorie wrote:

WOW that is much better!!!! All I have is Photoshop Elements how can I achieve the same results?

Unfortunately, I don't have Elements (I have Photoshop CS2) and this is one area where the two programs differ so I don't know exactly what controls Elements has in this area.

Here's one thing to try that I know Elements has.

Have you ever used the Levels function in Elements? Try Layer/New Adjustment layer/Levels. Grab the right-most of the three triangles and pull it to the left until the input level says about 125. Then grab the middle triangle and pull it to the left to taste. It should look something like this:




For noise reduction, you'll either have to experiment with the settings in Elements or wait for someone who knows Elements to give you some guidance. When a significantly underexposed shot like this is correct to a normal exposure, it is common for a lot of sensor noise to become visible so it's often desirable to remove some of the noise.

jfriend

One more

erikadorie wrote:

I made a gallery in my smugmug website for you to come look at and try to fix some lighting issues and such in these photos I took. Alot of my pole vaulting pictures were too dark and I'd really like to keep alot of them! Please take a look and tell me how to fix them or even try yourself when you get the time. Thanks so much

Here's the link http://erikadorie.smugmug.com/gallery/2566472#135059968

THanks so much!

erikadorie

And here's another one I did. This was much more complicated to fix because when you raise the brightness of the gymnast, the lights overpower things so I had to mask out the brightness of the lights while fixing the brightness of the gymnast. I also applied a little color correction to help the skin tone look better and some noise reduction. I don't know how I'd do this in Elements.

The full res fixed version is here if you want it.

mwgrice

One thing I noticed looking at the exif info for some of these shots is that the exposure compensation is set to -1/3 of a stop. So all things even they're going to tend to be a little darker.

I find it's all too easy for me to forget to check the exposure compensation. It looks like you also use a 30D, and half the time I can't remember which wheel you use to change it. (I'm starting to get better about making sure the IOS is set properly, and that I don't have the lens in manual focus mode, so there's hope.)