Photo editing

[Luca]

I don't know if it's a FOSS issue or not, but usually the awkwardness of programs like that (GIMP, Inkscape, and probably many others) are some of the reasons why I can't quit Windoze cold turkey, even though I really like the idea of just using Linux for everything, including but not limited to vector and raster editors.

I know that anyone could theoretically just crack it open and fix what they don't like, but that would take me years

Yeah, drawing in photoshop is one of the reasons I haven’t switched my laptop over to Linux even though I have with both home PCs.

 

[Outdated]

I don't know if it's a FOSS issue or not, but usually the awkwardness of programs like that....

What does the software engineer say about a program that works absolutely perfectly?

Well... obviously it doesn't have enough features yet....

 

[Sherlock77]

Here's one for you all, a fresh example from this past weekend... A little moment at an automotive swap meet... I couldn't photograph head on because of a baby stroller, with a baby... Light and shadow are rather interesting (re: challenging)... I don't know why but for some reason I want to find a way for this photo to work, or am I just polishing a turd?

I converted it to B&W, then ran it through Nik Efex plugin for Photoshop (Detail Extractor)... For a tough edit, B&W tends to be more forgiving...

Here is what I started with (non-cropped):

A slight crop, and the edit mentioned above resulted in this image

 

[Outdated]

I don't know why but for some reason I want to find a way for this photo to work, or am I just polishing a turd?

This is a photo that can be worked with, and you should be able to bring out the colour and contrast in the dark areas. An overexposed image is lost, white is white and you can't bring it back from there, but there's often a lot of colour and detail hidden in what our eyes see as black.

The black and white rendition of that image is a good demonstration of this, you can see the details in the lady's top and you can see that she does in fact have a right arm, where as in the colour image it just looks black.

I don't know what software you use, but look for a "burning" tool. It's like a paint brush but where you paint it creates an effect sort of like longer exposure, brightening and lightening areas of the picture. It takes a bit of practice using these tools to not make your editing obvious but you should be able to get something nice out of that picture.

[Edit] Technical explanation - the term Burning comes from the old days when we were working with negatives and exposing photographic paper. If there was a dark patch in a picture like yours we'd lay a few bits of ordinary paper over the top of the parts of photographic paper in the areas where the image was lighter as a mask.

Then we'd start our exposure and whip the mask away after a couple of seconds. So the darker area of the image got exposed for longer, or "burned". And as we took the bits of paper mask away we'd flick them back in and out of position a bit to feather and soften the edges of their shadow and try to make it look like an even exposure across the image.

 

[Sherlock77]

This is a photo that can be worked with, and you should be able to bring out the colour and contrast in the dark areas. An overexposed image is lost, white is white and you can't bring it back from there, but there's often a lot of colour and detail hidden in what our eyes see as black.

The black and white rendition of that image is a good demonstration of this, you can see the details in the lady's top and you can see that she does in fact have a right arm, where as in the colour image it just looks black.

I don't know what software you use, but look for a "burning" tool. It's like a paint brush but where you paint it creates an effect sort of like longer exposure, brightening and lightening areas of the picture. It takes a bit of practice using these tools to not make your editing obvious but you should be able to get something nice out of that picture.

[Edit] Technical explanation - the term Burning comes from the old days when we were working with negatives and exposing photographic paper. If there was a dark patch in a picture like yours we'd lay a few its of ordinary paper over the top of the parts of photographic in the areas where the image was lighter as a mask.

Then we'd start our exposure and whip the mask away after a couple of seconds. So the darker area of the image got exposed for longer, or "burned". And as we took the bits of paper mask away we'd flick them back in and out of position a bit to feather and soften the edges of their shadow and try to make it look like an even exposure across the image.

You have no idea how poor my higher level photo editing is, I try to get most of my photos in camera with only some minimal editing... I am aware of dodging and burning

 

[Outdated]

You have no idea how poor my higher level photo editing is, I try to get most of my photos in camera with only some minimal editing... I am aware of dodging and burning

I'm not really all that good with the editing software myself, but back when I first started printing we still used to work in darkrooms to first create negatives of images for printing and using those negatives to expose our plates. My father was also a keen photographer and had his own darkroom too.

 

[Judge]

Harsh and contrasting exposures in close proximity to me are some of the toughest conditions to alter digitally. Where dodging and burning must be done both manually and sparingly. Have to agree, such functions are not easy.

 

[Sherlock77]

Harsh and contrasting exposures in close proximity to me are some of the toughest conditions to alter digitally. Where dodging and burning must be done both manually and sparingly. Have to agree, such functions are not easy.

I still dared to post the edited photo on my Instagram an hour ago, three likes so far, whatever that means... I am also about how photography these days almost becomes too much about perfection for most people...