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

On 2014-07-14 23:07:22 +0000, PeterN said:

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


Either Photoshop Elements or Corel Paint shop Pro might fill your
needs. You can get trial versions and decide.

Have you got a thing for Jennifer Murphy, or have you just decided now
would be a good time to respond to some old OPs?


--
Regards,

Savageduck

On 15/07/2014 00:07, PeterN wrote:
[]
Either Photoshop Elements or Corel Paint shop Pro might fill your needs.
You can get trial versions and decide.

No need to use trial-ware that will time out. Try Paint.NET - it's free:

http://www.getpaint.net/

--
Cheers,
David
Web: http://www.satsignal.eu