Trying to rescue Underexposed Pic's

[cornishboy2004]

I have a few under exposed pics that i am trying to rescue using my limited knowledge of Photoshop CS5

Please feel free to comment and give some advice rights/wrongs etc

Before :-



After :-

[Donald]

Please feel free to comment and give some advice rights/wrongs etc

Mathew

Maybe you could start us off by telling us what you did do in post processing with this image?

[Gospelflier]

The first image is dark. But the second one is a bit disconcerting to me. It kind of looks like you cut out the old sky and put in a new one with different clouds. The horses' hooves look like they are not quite touching the ground because the shadows are not right. I think the background is way too light.

But I do like the subject.

[Shadowman]

Your intended subjects don't really dominant the image. The horses and the building in the background occupy the most space as opposed to the small section containing the rider's faces. With that in mind, your post processing is successful for the dominant characters only.

[pnodrog]

You need to be a little more subtle especially with the vignetting. Best to make a duplicate layer and mask out sky etc. then adjust shadow/highlights, curves and saturation on duplicate layer.

When you get the overall tonal range under control you can flatten and adjust overall to your preference. I prefer a bit less saturation than your adjustment but that is just my personal preference. I have left it a little bland but under control.

[GrahamH]

As a quick procedure, copy to another layer, select blending mode as screen. This lightens the whole image, adjust opacity to preference, use layer mask to hide or reveal relevant subjects.
Graham

[Aforns]

Any time you try to rescue an underexposed image noise will creep up in a big way !! Really best to take the time and check your histogram while making the image.

Sometimes the contrast range is such that there is no way to have detail in all .... either blow the highlights or block the shadows. In PS you can try shadow highlight and see how it does, I like using curves in layers to affect different areas of the image independently. Its al trial and error with many different ways for doing the same task !!! .... non right or wrong !!

[Geoff F]

I think you have to allow for a bit of shadows with a scene like this Matthew.

So I have had a quick edit, mostly using Curves Adjustment Layers and selectively editing their masks, as Alfred suggested. However, I have also varied the layer blend modes.



My method, approx:

Create a Curves Adjustment Layer and set the blend mode to Screen. This will excessively brighten everything. Drag the diagonal line into a reverse S curve. Keep the top and bottom points the same but slightly drag the top section of the line downwards; then do the opposite thing with the lower half.

The line should roughly look like an S shape but the wrong way around.

Edit the mask slightly (black mask brush) to selectively remove the effect, and darken, around the clouds and part of the building. Use a low opacity (20% approx) soft edged brush of suitable size.

Create a second curves adjustment layer but set the blend mode to Linear Dodge. This will excessively lighten everything. Invert the mask (becomes a hide all mask and the effect disappears).

Gradually paint over a few areas with a 'white mask brush' with similar settings as before to selectively lighten areas. Such as around their faces and very lightly on their dark clothing. Use this sparingly.

Apply a little Local Contrast Enhancement to improve contrast and saturation. I used Unsharp Mask at 20% and 40 pixels.

And the final edit, is to clone out any annoying pieces of twigs etc.

ps. If this is a little on the 'cool side' a slight tweak with the red channel should give a sunnier effect.

[dje]

Matthew the main issue with this image IMO is that the riders are in shadow. Overall the image is quite well exposed - if you look at the histogram the tones extend all the way across to right hand side. If you'd used a higher exposure setting, parts of the image would have been over-exposed.

A simple fix is to increase the Shadows to about 50% in the Highlights and Shadows adjustment in CS5. I'd also select everything except the horses and riders and add some LCE to that (Unsharp Mask with an amount of about 20-30% and a pixel radius of say 350.)

I think the image could do with some extra sharpening too.

Here's my take on it.

Dave