Bump It Up….Thirty Second Photo Fix
So you took a picture and despite your best attempts making sure your settings were correct you ended up with something that looks much different than what the human eye was seeing at the time of the photo was taken.
In this tutorial we will take a basic & quick look at what you can do by bumping your Levels in Photoshop CS2 with the help of the Histogram. You can access the Histogram in your image editing software as well as on board your digital Point & Shoot camera as most digital cameras on the market now have built-in Histograms to help you see the Exposure/Tonal Range of the photo as the camera is reading it, thus giving you an edge to make some adjustments to correct for improper exposure before you take the photo. And, fear not if you don’t have PSCS2, pretty much every image editing software package offers the ability to tweak your Levels and access the Histogram for your Post Production Processing. So, let’s get this photo tweaking show on the road.
Saving The Overexposed:
OK, so, for this example you don’t need the Histogram to tell you this shot is Overexposed (OE). So OE there are areas that are “blown” which means the details are lost and can’t be recovered during Post Processing (PP). Luckily for me, the blown area of this shot doesn’t effect the outcome b/c it’s not the focal point of the picture and is just in the reflection of the cellophane wrapper towards the bottom of the photo.
Notice on the Histogram all the information is skewed heavily to the right which indicates OE. Or if you have a lot of whites/lights your Histogram will skew to the left. If the Histogram was in reverse & the info was skewed heavily to the right the photo would be Underexposed (which is sometimes a good thing) or contain a lot of darks or black.
Let’s do some tweaking……
In Photoshop we will be using “Adjustment Layers” so we make all our adjustments to a separate layer above our original & don’t actually damage the original image. In your Layers Palette click on the Half White/Half Black circle to create a new Adjustment Layer. A pop-up menu will appear – click “Levels” and a window will open with a Histogram where we will do our tweaking.
In the Channel Drop Down box you’ll see a list of Options which are: RGB, Red, Green & Blue. First we will tweak our Reds.
Now onto the tweaking of our Green Channel.
Now let’s move to the Blue Channel.
I moved the Blues just a hair to give them a tiny bit more lightness. Also, take notice of the Histogram in the upper right corner and how it is slightly more evened out with each Channel we tweak. It will remain heavy on the right side because of the many light colors in the photo itself. Now we will just finish up with our RGB Channel for one last tweak.
And finally, the RGB Channel Tweak.
So with the above tweaks to Levels, this Overexposed photo has gone from blah to wow in less than 30 seconds thanks to our handy Histogram!
Before:
After:
If you go back and look at each screen shot as we bumped the Levels you will see the main Histogram window changing slightly to represent a more even photo & color information. By this happening our photo looks much better exposed and has much better color distribution through out.
Keep in mind that while my personal preferences lead me to like the end result of this photo tweak, there may be many who say it’s all wrong and not “correct”. Being the project I made at Silver Bella is at my house I know what the true in real life colors are and what the blues should look like to best represent the “real thing”. Also, beauty is in the eye of the beholder and depending on your personal style & tatstes you may like a very dark photo for added drama or a light photo to convey a happy & light feeling….it’s all up to you and your tastes. Now go get into your image editing software and start bumping those levels…you will be shocked at what you can do in less than a minute.
A little tip for using the Histogram on your camera. Having your photo slightly Underexposed is much better and forgiving than having it Overexposed as once those details are blown out you can not get them back. But, if your photo is Underexposed, more often than not that information & detail can be brought back to life by lightening the photo up a little….
Don’t be afraid of not doing it right, just get out there and create, it should be fun & reflect who you are, not what everyone else is doing.
You can download a PDF of this tutorial for easy reading and future reference right here:
Download jayner_61608sisbump_it_up.pdf .
Have fun and feel free to PM me with any questions you may have.
~jayne
a.k.a. NellieRose