wrote in message
I have a number of underexposed photographs that I would like to correct as best I can. What’s the best way to do this using Photoshop? Change the levels? Alter gamma,
brightness, contrast? Use "variations"? Thanks.
In my experience, there isn’t any one way to approach the correction, since there isn’t any one type of underexposure.
Often, underexposure will result in grain in shadow areas, a lot *more* of the shadow areas, limited color rendition, and so on. Underexposure due to low light conditions will often have a color cast – in natural light (outside in the evenings), you may see a tendency towards blue, unless sunset tones happen to color the photo. Indoors, you’re dealing with any kind of insufficient lighting – incandescents will make things yellow to orange, fluorescents will make things green. Underexposure due to camera settings, however, may be reasonably well-balanced, colorwise.
I would suggest attacking it from Curves, which will let you tweak the brightness, contrast, and color casts all at the same time, more or less. Make changes in very small increments, since any one might affect the others.
Once you seem to have your light, color, and contrast where you want it, then attack the shadow areas and grain as needed. You might find that you want to address the shadow areas separately (on a different layer) to bring in much higher contrast and try to enhance the minimal shadow detail that the film captured. Then simply mask those areas back into the overall photo.
Hope this helps. Good luck!
– Al.
—
To reply, insert dash in address to match domain below
Online photo gallery at www.wading-in.net
