![]() It’s an old photography trick used in the days of the darkroom, and now with modern technology can be done in minutes with a few simple steps in Photoshop.įirst you are going to need two or more photographs of your subject, so find yourself a victim to experiment on, or try a self portrait. But there are plenty of other tools in GIMP that will help you to salvage your underexposed photos.This is a fun twist on portraiture that can often tell a bit more of a story about your subject, by allowing them to reveal two or more sides to their personality. In most cases, you can probably fix the problem using the Brightness-Contrast, Curves, or Levels Tools. Conclusionįixing dark photos can be a bit of work, but the result is often worth the effort. It’s one of my favorite parts of this composition. I especially like the way that my son’s legs are positioned similarly to Shakespeare’s. I think the overall result is pretty satisfying. I used the Clone Tool and the Hue-Saturation Tool to fix some problems in the background. I also lightened his face and darkened his arms to correct an imbalance I saw there. Then from the Filters Menu, I applied a Mean Curvature Blur with 5 iterations. Then I clicked CTRL + Select None, and used the clone tool again to blur the sharp lines left by the Select Tool. I darkened and increased the saturation of the grass using the Brightness-Contrast and Hue-Saturation tools from the Colors Menu. Then I simply opened the other image in another tab, used CTRL + Click to select a spot on the grass, and cloned it in. I selected the areas I wanted to clone the grass into with the Free Select Tool. So I decided to clone some grass in from another image, also taken at the Dallas Arboretum. The result was that the photo was improved, but the background still looked a bit strange, and the grassy area was totally missing from the image. I used Brightness-Contrast from the Colors Menu to increase the brightness and contrast of this dark section of the photo. Then I selected the area at the bottom of the photograph, including the subject, to edit that area separately. I used the Curves Tool from the Colors Menu to rebalance them. Then I selected the flowers, bushes, and trees in the foreground with the Free Select Tool. Some people prefer the Fuzzy Select Tool, but I have had so many problems with it, I often find the Free Select Tool to be much easier. The Levels Tool allows you to select a white and black input level, rebalancing the output levels of the image.įor photographic problems like these, I find the Free Select Tool is very useful. I selected the less overexposed portions of the background using the Free Select Tool from the GIMP toolbar, and then used the Levels Tool from the Colors Menu to adjust it. ![]() So I dealt with different sections of the image separately. In this image we have both overexposed and underexposed areas. However, when a picture is too overexposed, it is often impossible to salvage it, because the too much of the image information is lost. I want to mention that when a picture is dark or underexposed, it is almost always salvageable, because all the information you need to save the photo is there. Not only is the foreground far too dark, the background is also far too bright. One picture I wanted to save was this one, of my son Jamie, chilling with his homie Shakespeare at the Dallas Arboretum. ![]() Fixing a Photo that Is Both Too Dark and Too Light I think you’ll agree that the photo that started out too dark and was edited afterward to be brighter is far more nuanced and pleasant to look at. ![]() Here is the finished photo.Ĭompare this to an overexposed photo taken with the flash that same day. I also slightly increased the saturation of the subject. Then I selected his head, and applied a Brightness-Contrast filter, bringing up both the lightness and the contrast. I had to do this twice to get the right effect. Then I selected his body, clicked Select – Invert, and then reduced the saturation of the background using Hue-Saturation from the Colors Menu. I ran this through the Levels Filter in the Colors Menu twice, using a bright spot on the shoulder harness of his backpack as the white level, and a section of his clothing for the black level. ![]() It was taken in low light, a single LED bulb being the only lighting source. Take this picture of my son Jonathan in a Blurryface Halloween costume that he made himself. In fact, sometimes I prefer to take a photo in low light and enhance it in GIMP, because the light of the sun or the flash is just too harsh. I end up with a lot of photos that are just a little bit underexposed. Thankfully, GIMP, a free photo manipulation program, has all the tools I need to rescue my favorite photos on my Linux machine. Many times, a picture that I was hoping to be perfect comes out a little too dark. ![]()
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