Disappointed with photo

up for anything

When I took this photo it looked really good on the LCD on the camera but now I've transferred it to the pc, it looks dull and lifeless. Is there anything I can do to resurrect it. I don't have photoshop or anything bar the most basic photo editing software that came with the pc. Thanks.

DadaKopf

Install GIMP from www.gimp.org. It's a very good, free, open source Photoshoppy program. It's a bit tricky to get used to, if you're already used to something like Photoshop.

What you need to do is work the levels to bring up the dark areas, and show up the highlights, and deepen the mid-tones to enrich the colour of the sky. It's actually not a bad photo, it looks more like Ireland really is!

Ruu_Old

Dont be too disappointed with it, all it needs is some highlighting to spruce it up. Dont get discouraged, keep posting.

up for anything

Thanks for that. I'm not used to Photoshop or editing, I only mentioned it because it's the one I've heard of.:D

At the time the photo was taken the clouds were really black against blue sky and it was much, much sunnier than it appears. Any idea if there was something I could have changed on the camera (it's a Fuji Finepix F455 - pretty basic model) that would have helped at the time?

CrowdedHouse

Picasa2 from Google has some tuning/effects and is very easy to use
It's also free.

Zillah

Gimme a higher resolution copy and I'll see what I can do.

up for anything

Zillah wrote:

Gimme a higher resolution copy and I'll see what I can do.

Thanks but I'm not sure what you mean. The photo is hosted on Photobucket... is there something on there that will enable me to give you a higher resolution copy or do I need to go back to the Finepix editing page?

FinoBlad

up for anything wrote:

Any idea if there was something I could have changed on the camera (it's a Fuji Finepix F455 - pretty basic model) that would have helped at the time?

Small compacts like that arent always the best for giving the correct exposure. I'd say your shot is a little underexposed.

Remember that a digital camera cannot capture the same range of light tones that the human eye can see.

Finally the LCD isnt the definitive guide to a good photo sadly. Everyone gets caught out once in a while

slumped

I took the liberty of doing a bit of work on it myself - hope you don't mind.

It's hard to work with it at low res though.

Here it is: Attachment not found.


S

unklerosco

Did that quickly in Picassa... Handy dandy for quick fixes, i love it

dalk

Up For Anything... dont be disappointed with that exposure. But it does require some work by you. The picture is going from very bright (sky) to very dark (backlit hedge). No camera can handle that much latitude. The camera made the choice of not blowing out (most of) the highlights, at the expense of the darker areas. But it looks like there is some detail left in the shadows. So plenty to work with.

Heinrich

Simple Photoshop adjustments:


Autocolour

+


Brightness/Contrast

dalk

Not to be left out. 5 mins messing with Corel PhotoPaint (which i dont reall like).

up for anything

Thanks to you all for taking time to have a go at editing it. The results were great.:)