digital photo processing

Tutorial digital photo processing #16 - Correcting Underexposure

  
  

1. The first thing we need to do is create a duplicate copy of our image. Select the Duplicate command from the Image menu and give it a new name.

2. With our new image active, choose the Desaturate command from the Image Adjust menu - this will drain all the colour.

3. Ok, we need to blur the image, but not so much as we lose vital detail within the image. From the Filter menu, choose Blur and then Gaussian Blur. In the value settings box, enter a value of somewhere around 4.5 to 6. Click on OK when you are happy with your settings.

4. We now need to select the under-exposed areas - Get the Magic Wand tool from the Tool Box and click anywhere on the dark areas you want to fix.

   You can now either hold down the Shift button and add more of the dark areas to your selection, or you can choose the Similar command from the Select menu.

5. When you are happy with your selection, choose the Save Selection command from the Select menu - by doing this we can load the selection onto our original image.

6. Switch back to the original under-exposed image. Load the previously saved selection by choosing the Load Selection command from the Select menu. You should now see the marching ants (selection) around the dark areas of the image.

7. Now for the magic act! From the Edit menu choose the Fill command. Enter the settings opposite and press OK

Hopefully you should now have cured an under-exposed image!

This technique will also work on over-exposed images - all you need to do is select the lighter areas rather than the dark ones and choose Color Burn command instead of Color Dodge.