Newbie needs help!

KR
Posted By
Kai Robinson
Jun 27, 2003
Views
292
Replies
4
Status
Closed
Hey all 🙂

I’ve just bought photoshop, and i’ve used PS4.x previously and cropped and resized pictures, but mostly i created text logo’s (simple ones) for my website. Now when it comes to pictures, i’m at a loss. The photo’s i take are either slightly too dark, or slightly over exposed – i need help specifically with a) brightening dark images (brightness/contrast dont do anything except make it look worse) and b) how to darken overexposed images.

Thanks for any help you can give!

Kai
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S
Shadowfax
Jun 27, 2003
Kai Robinson wrote in
news:BB221744.80BD%:

Hey all 🙂

I’ve just bought photoshop, and i’ve used PS4.x previously and cropped and resized pictures, but mostly i created text logo’s (simple ones) for my website. Now when it comes to pictures, i’m at a loss. The photo’s i take are either slightly too dark, or slightly over exposed – i need help specifically with a) brightening dark images (brightness/contrast dont do anything except make it look worse) and b) how to darken overexposed images.

Thanks for any help you can give!

Kai

Without going into all the many variables, the first thing you should do is adjust the Levels Histogram (Image/Adjustments/Levels) of the image. Use the sliders indicated by the three small triangles to remove the flat areas (no data) on the left (Black) and right (White) of the curve that have image data. Basically, if you have a flat area on the left of your histogram, slide the black triangle to the right until it
S
Shadowfax
Jun 27, 2003
J C wrote in
news:XXj8PhohmdY=yG1s9mSlp=:

On Fri, 27 Jun 2003 09:14:01 -0500, Shadowfax
wrote:

Without going into all the many variables, the first thing you should do is adjust the Levels Histogram
(Image/Adjustments/Levels) of the image.

While all that is good, I’d disagree that its the first step.
Rather I think the first step is to make sure the monitor is calibrated correctly to display the images.

Ok,
H
Hecate
Jun 30, 2003
On Sat, 28 Jun 2003 22:14:58 -0500, Shadowfax
wrote:

Hecate wrote in
news::

On Fri, 27 Jun 2003 15:56:57 -0500, Shadowfax
wrote:

Ok, “after” you make sure you’ve calibrated your monitor, that would be my first step (after duplicating the background layer). Point taken.

😉 And before I even did that, I’d make sure that it’s not the camera that’s the problem 😉

—

Hecate
(Fried computers a specialty)

And before that, I’d make sure it’s not the person behind the camera that’s the problem. Then again, how do we know his mother doesn’t have a hand in all this?

;^)

LOL!!!

—

Hecate
(Fried computers a specialty)
B
Bernie
Jul 11, 2003
Hey all 🙂

I’ve just bought photoshop, and i’ve used PS4.x previously and cropped and resized pictures, but mostly i created text logo’s (simple ones) for my website. Now when it comes to pictures, i’m at a loss. The photo’s i take are either slightly too dark, or slightly over exposed – i need help specifically with a) brightening dark images (brightness/contrast dont do anything except make it look worse) and b) how to darken overexposed
images.
Thanks for any help you can give!

Kai
=======================
The very first thing you should do with a photo which wasn’t perfectly lighted and taken with painstaking setting of the camera is to adjust the levels.(Image –>Adjustments –>Levels) Many times you will find areas on both the white and black areas of the histogram that are flat-lined. Simply pulling these end points in to where the actual histogram begins will do much to improve your image. Then use the middle slider to refine you correction. A far more adjustable, albeit much more complicated procedure is to use "curves" (Image – ->Adjustments –>Curves). With "Curves", you can select specific areas of the photo for adjustment, while with "Levels". The entire image is effected. The appropriate use of curves could take a small book to teach,. Of course, there’s much more to all of this then I’ve mentioned, and Photoshop has many redundant features. Some prefer one while others prefer another.

If your image is for printing, rather than the screen, you will note that what you see is not what you get. This is becasuse you are use an RGB color system in Photoshop, or with ANY computer monitor (even when you switch to CMYK, you are still getting RGB output which is attempting to SIMULATE CMYK). CMYK is the color system that your printer, home or professional uses. The gamut (range of saturation and brightness) is greater in RGB than CMYK and so, what you see on the monitor cannot always be reproduced on paper. Professionals do what is called, "color correction" so that the colors both look appropriate and stay within the CMYK gamut. Skin tone is frequently used for a baseline for color reproduction since it is quite obvious to even the untrained eye when skin tone is unnatural. Color correction can be quite involved and is only really mandated in professional work, where the aim is to please as many of your target audience as possible. For personal use, as long as you are happy with the output, color correction may be irrevelant.
Bernie

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