Is there a way to lighten up a photo without expensive software?

On 12/15/2013 10:08 PM, Jennifer Murphy wrote:
Every now and then, I get a pretty good group photo where everyone has
their eyes open and no one has a weird expression on their face. Sadly,
the image is a little too dark. This is often because of back lighting
and I forget to select that setting.

I found a lot of tutorials for how to do it with Photoshop, but I don't
want to spend $600 for a tool that I won't use more than 1% of.

Is there any way that I can just lighten up the photo without having to
buy Photoshop? If there is nothing cheaper, I'd be willing to spend up
to $50 or so.

I have Irfanview. I found two options that seem to do what I want, but I
am not sure how to use them. Is there a tutorial somewhere?

1. Auto Adjust Colors (Shift+U). I tried this on a few photos. It takes
a few seconds and seems to generally lighten everything. It can be done
more than once, but doesn't seem to have any other adjustments.

2. Color Correction (Shift+G). This brings up a second view of the photo
side by side with several sliders underneath: Brightness, Color Balance
(RGB), Contrast, Gamma Correction, and Saturation.

Brightness lightens everything the same amount. This might be useful if
the whole photo was too dark.

Color balance seems like I should leave it alone.

Contrast is a little harder to use. I'm not sure what the contrast is
between.

Gamma Correction starts out at 1.00. I am also not sure what it does.

Saturation seems to control how close it is to grey scale.

Can anyone offer any hints about how to use these adjustments?

Is there any tool that will scan the photo and make its best guess at
what to do?

Thanks

YOu may try any of the following:
All sell for under $100. And you can get free 30 day trial periods.

Adobe Photoshop Lightroom 5;
Photoshop Elements;
Corel Photopaint,

I am not familiar with others, but any one of the above should work.

--
PeterN

On 12/15/2013 11:42 PM, Jennifer Murphy wrote:
On Sun, 15 Dec 2013 20:38:58 -0800, isw wrote:

In article ,
Jennifer Murphy wrote:

Every now and then, I get a pretty good group photo where everyone has
their eyes open and no one has a weird expression on their face. Sadly,
the image is a little too dark. This is often because of back lighting
and I forget to select that setting.

I found a lot of tutorials for how to do it with Photoshop, but I don't
want to spend $600 for a tool that I won't use more than 1% of.

GIMP is free.

I tried that once and found it impossible to use. The windows kept
jumping all over.

If you have a Mac, you can do it in Preview (which comes with the kit).

I have a PC.


Unless you areinto a lot of futzing, do not use Gimp. It's not worth the
ptice.

--
PeterN

On 12/16/2013 7:20 AM, Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
Jennifer Murphy wrote:
Brightness lightens everything the same amount. This might be useful if
the whole photo was too dark.

...

Contrast is a little harder to use. I'm not sure what the contrast is
between.

Gamma Correction starts out at 1.00. I am also not sure what it does.

Everyone seems to have missed the essense of the above part of
your original statement. I take it from the above that you
*don't* want to just make the whole image brighter, but you
actually want the subject to look better while not necessarily
doing anything to the background. That is a distinction that
has not been discussed in any of the responses.

First, to really get into doing that is a very complex editing
issue that clearly you don't want to mess with ever! At the
level you are willing to work at, there isn't a lot that can be
done, but sometimes a couple of very simple things will provide
at least some benefit.

The tool you'll need is usually called "Curves", though I'm not
sure what it might be in any of the software packages you have
or might get. What it does is present you with a graph that is
a histogram of the image, showing pixel counts at each
brightness level along with a "gamma curve" that starts as a
straight line but can be changed by moving points on it with the
mouse.

I agree with what most of wht you say, but I couldn't agree less on your
choice of a tool.
Curves is a great tool, but a beginner-who has little or no experience,
will lkely find it difficult to use.




--
PeterN

PeterN wrote:
On 12/16/2013 7:20 AM, Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
Jennifer Murphy wrote:
Brightness lightens everything the same amount. This might be useful if
the whole photo was too dark.

...

Contrast is a little harder to use. I'm not sure what the contrast is
between.

Gamma Correction starts out at 1.00. I am also not sure what it does.

Everyone seems to have missed the essense of the above part of
your original statement. I take it from the above that you
*don't* want to just make the whole image brighter, but you
actually want the subject to look better while not necessarily
doing anything to the background. That is a distinction that
has not been discussed in any of the responses.

First, to really get into doing that is a very complex editing
issue that clearly you don't want to mess with ever! At the
level you are willing to work at, there isn't a lot that can be
done, but sometimes a couple of very simple things will provide
at least some benefit.

The tool you'll need is usually called "Curves", though I'm not
sure what it might be in any of the software packages you have
or might get. What it does is present you with a graph that is
a histogram of the image, showing pixel counts at each
brightness level along with a "gamma curve" that starts as a
straight line but can be changed by moving points on it with the
mouse.

I agree with what most of wht you say, but I couldn't agree less on your
choice of a tool.
Curves is a great tool, but a beginner-who has little or no experience,
will lkely find it difficult to use.

In your zeal you missed what was said and apparently stopped
reading at the point you ended the quoted text. The snipped
context not quoted specifically said it won't be easy to learn,
so you have added exactly nothing... And you've missed that it
is the least difficult way to potentially accomplish what was
wanted, and in the OP's case might be 1) something she can
learn, and be 2) something worth learning.

On the other hand, learning how to mask out a child from the
rest of the image and then change the brightness, contrast, and
saturation of the child in one way and the background in another
way... is 1) the best option, and 2) not something the OP will
ever want to learn.

--
Floyd L. Davidson http://www.apaflo.com/
Ukpeagvik (Barrow, Alaska)

In article ,
says...

On Sun, 15 Dec 2013 19:08:37 -0800, Jennifer Murphy
wrote:

Every now and then, I get a pretty good group photo where everyone has
their eyes open and no one has a weird expression on their face. Sadly,
the image is a little too dark. This is often because of back lighting
and I forget to select that setting.

I found a lot of tutorials for how to do it with Photoshop, but I don't
want to spend $600 for a tool that I won't use more than 1% of.

Is there any way that I can just lighten up the photo without having to
buy Photoshop? If there is nothing cheaper, I'd be willing to spend up
to $50 or so.

I have Irfanview. I found two options that seem to do what I want, but I
am not sure how to use them. Is there a tutorial somewhere?

1. Auto Adjust Colors (Shift+U). I tried this on a few photos. It takes
a few seconds and seems to generally lighten everything. It can be done
more than once, but doesn't seem to have any other adjustments.

2. Color Correction (Shift+G). This brings up a second view of the photo
side by side with several sliders underneath: Brightness, Color Balance
(RGB), Contrast, Gamma Correction, and Saturation.

Brightness lightens everything the same amount. This might be useful if
the whole photo was too dark.

Color balance seems like I should leave it alone.

Contrast is a little harder to use. I'm not sure what the contrast is
between.

Gamma Correction starts out at 1.00. I am also not sure what it does.

Saturation seems to control how close it is to grey scale.

Can anyone offer any hints about how to use these adjustments?

Is there any tool that will scan the photo and make its best guess at
what to do?

Thanks


With Photoshop Elements there are things to do.

One
http://www.slideshare.net/archkre/fi...-for-photoshop

and
http://www.instructables.com/id/Phot...d_chance_flash

another
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/art...32082&seqNum=6


some info
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/619773

Old version of PE had it ready made, newer versions deleted the simple
function, added more control.

As usual, make a copy of the picture and only edit one of them, save
one just in case.

Just a reminder that until December 31 one can get Photoshop CC and
Lightroom for $10/month on a one-year contract. What the price will be
after that year expires is anybody's guess, but if one wants to test the
waters of Adobe it's not a bad deal. If you don't like it you're out
not much more than for Elements, and if you do like it, well, then
Adobe's hooked you.

I don't think that Photoshop/Lightroom are necessary for what is being
described here, but I figured that since people were suggesting Elements
that the Photoshop deal should be mentioned.

On Mon, 16 Dec 2013 02:29:19 -0500, nospam
wrote:

In article , Jennifer
Murphy wrote:

that way is a lot more work for the user than is needed. the computer
is *really* good at searching and indexing photos so you can search on
content.

How does it know what the content is? Do I enter keywords?

yes, as well as user ratings and any other info you want.

you can add keywords in batch, so when you import the birthday party
photos, you tell it to give all of them the birthday party keyword,
then as you go through them to see which ones are keepers and which
aren't, you can rate them accordingly and add any additional keywords
that may be relevant.

it's not as bad as it sounds and beats having to sort photos in
specific folders and then maintain it.

it really pays off when you want a certain photo but aren't sure when
you took it or what the event was, so you don't know which folder it's
in.

it's similar to how you might search for photos using google's image
search. you search on what you want photos of and it gives you images
that match. however, unlike google, you get what you want.

for instance, you could search by location (e.g., disneyland) and get
all photos in that location. you could search on birthday parties and
get john's party and any other birthday parties, or search on birthday
parties of just john. photos can be rated 1-5 stars, so you can search
of only the best ones. it's very flexible.

How does it know a photo is from Disneyland or a party? Again, keywords
I type in?

you could use keywords for that, but it's easier to geotag it with the
gps coordinates.

ideally that's done in the camera from a gps (some cameras have a gps
and nearly all smartphones do), but the location can be added later if
it's not added by the camera. again, that can be done in a batch if you
shoot a bunch of photos in one place, which could even be 'california'
if you don't want to mark each individual city.

Lightroom sounds like a tool I should have. And it also has some photo
editing capabilities, similar to PSE, right?

Does it have any capability to share photos with another person. At the
moment, my SO and I have our PCs connected over a P2P network. I use a
program called Beyond Compare to keep the two sets of folder trees in
sync so that either of us can access the photos.

Would we both have to have a copy of Lightroom? Is there a way to sync
the two databases?

On Mon, 16 Dec 2013 09:06:25 +0000, Martin Brown
wrote:

On 16/12/2013 08:21, David Taylor wrote:
On 16/12/2013 03:08, Jennifer Murphy wrote:

You might like to try the free Paint.Net and see how you like it:

http://www.getpaint.net/

There are tutorials he

http://www.getpaint.net/doc/latest/Tutorials.html

Another free one that might suit is Picasa.

https://support.google.com/picasa/answer/156342

It does more or less what a beginner wants and its defaults are fairly
sensible for under or over exposure and fixing colour casts.

A list of most of the available tools for this sort of thing is at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...aphics_editors

If you want something a bit more capable but with a steeper learning
curve then the cut down Photoshop Elements or Paintshop Pro are worth a
try. Both are at about the same price point.

You can often get version N-1 remaindered if you shop around.

Thanks for the suggestions. I am thinking that Lightroom is the best
choice for me. I may not use many of the editing features, but the
organizing capability could be a life saver. Plus, as a mainstream
product, I'm more likely to be able to get help here and elsewhere.

On Mon, 16 Dec 2013 02:24:44 -0800, charles wrote:

On Sun, 15 Dec 2013 19:08:37 -0800, Jennifer Murphy
wrote:

Every now and then, I get a pretty good group photo where everyone has
their eyes open and no one has a weird expression on their face. Sadly,
the image is a little too dark. This is often because of back lighting
and I forget to select that setting.

I found a lot of tutorials for how to do it with Photoshop, but I don't
want to spend $600 for a tool that I won't use more than 1% of.

Is there any way that I can just lighten up the photo without having to
buy Photoshop? If there is nothing cheaper, I'd be willing to spend up
to $50 or so.

I have Irfanview. I found two options that seem to do what I want, but I
am not sure how to use them. Is there a tutorial somewhere?

1. Auto Adjust Colors (Shift+U). I tried this on a few photos. It takes
a few seconds and seems to generally lighten everything. It can be done
more than once, but doesn't seem to have any other adjustments.

2. Color Correction (Shift+G). This brings up a second view of the photo
side by side with several sliders underneath: Brightness, Color Balance
(RGB), Contrast, Gamma Correction, and Saturation.

Brightness lightens everything the same amount. This might be useful if
the whole photo was too dark.

Color balance seems like I should leave it alone.

Contrast is a little harder to use. I'm not sure what the contrast is
between.

Gamma Correction starts out at 1.00. I am also not sure what it does.

Saturation seems to control how close it is to grey scale.

Can anyone offer any hints about how to use these adjustments?

Is there any tool that will scan the photo and make its best guess at
what to do?

Thanks


With Photoshop Elements there are things to do.

One
http://www.slideshare.net/archkre/fi...-for-photoshop

and
http://www.instructables.com/id/Phot...d_chance_flash

another
http://www.peachpit.com/articles/art...32082&seqNum=6


some info
http://forums.adobe.com/thread/619773

Old version of PE had it ready made, newer versions deleted the simple
function, added more control.

As usual, make a copy of the picture and only edit one of them, save
one just in case.

Are those same features available in Lightroom?

On Mon, 16 Dec 2013 08:22:40 -0500, PeterN
wrote:

On 12/16/2013 7:20 AM, Floyd L. Davidson wrote:
Jennifer Murphy wrote:
Brightness lightens everything the same amount. This might be useful if
the whole photo was too dark.

...

Contrast is a little harder to use. I'm not sure what the contrast is
between.

Gamma Correction starts out at 1.00. I am also not sure what it does.

Everyone seems to have missed the essense of the above part of
your original statement. I take it from the above that you
*don't* want to just make the whole image brighter, but you
actually want the subject to look better while not necessarily
doing anything to the background. That is a distinction that
has not been discussed in any of the responses.

First, to really get into doing that is a very complex editing
issue that clearly you don't want to mess with ever! At the
level you are willing to work at, there isn't a lot that can be
done, but sometimes a couple of very simple things will provide
at least some benefit.

The tool you'll need is usually called "Curves", though I'm not
sure what it might be in any of the software packages you have
or might get. What it does is present you with a graph that is
a histogram of the image, showing pixel counts at each
brightness level along with a "gamma curve" that starts as a
straight line but can be changed by moving points on it with the
mouse.

I agree with what most of wht you say, but I couldn't agree less on your
choice of a tool.
Curves is a great tool, but a beginner-who has little or no experience,
will lkely find it difficult to use.

Very true, Curves is way too advanced for a casual shooter -- the same
can be said for Lightroom, Elements, and Corel Paint Shop Pro.

Jennifer has strayed into a nest of photo enthusiasts and pros, some
of whom are trying to thrust advanced techniques on somebody who
doesn't want or need them. Don't you guys have casual shooter spouses
or know point-and-shooter neighbors or others outside of photo
circles? Most people in the world are not photo pros or hobbyists.
They have other things that they excel at, and don't want to become
photographers.

W

Le 16/12/13 17:29, Wally a écrit :

Very true, Curves is way too advanced for a casual shooter -- the same
can be said for Lightroom, Elements, and Corel Paint Shop Pro.

Other free simple softwares were suggested as well, including ViewNX
that is bundled with Nikon camera. As far as I know, Picasa works with
sliders, not curves. And it contains a face recognition utility, that
she may like.

(I count the suggestion of The Gimp as plain absurd in this context)


Jennifer has strayed into a nest of photo enthusiasts and pros, some
of whom are trying to thrust advanced techniques on somebody who
doesn't want or need them. Don't you guys have casual shooter spouses
or know point-and-shooter neighbors or others outside of photo
circles? Most people in the world are not photo pros or hobbyists.
They have other things that they excel at, and don't want to become
photographers.

We dont know what she want or not beside a tool to correct her shots
easily.

Noëlle Adam