Deeper Contrasts

[jophassa]

Hello hello. I have been taking photographs with my phone's camera (i know, it is probably the biggest taboo in these forums) of 2MPs. I have it with be all the time and so i have taken some pretty great photos of people etc. I have printed a few off and put them on my wall next to some B+W SLR photos which look to have deeper blacks. Is there a way to edit photos and get deeper blacks? (i have GIMP).

 

[his4ever]

Yay! Hello fellow gimper!!

I would use the levels tool. You can find it (if you have higher than 2.0 i knowfor sure this is the right directions...)
TOOLS--> Color Tools --> Levels. You can also use curves and the brighten/contrast mode. I feel levels has produced the best results, but I am still a newbie at this and a pro may say diffrently.

If you are using a LCD monitor (comon on laptops) you will not get the contrast right. Best to use a CRT monitor (like the big old ones! that are calabrated right). I started to notice that my colors and contrasts were coming out a little better after contectiong a CRT to my laptop. I am still mastering my eye tho to make them look good. And a CRT monitor cant help me there .

 

[markc]

This is where learning to use the histogram comes in. You don't have to rely on having your monitor prefectly calibrated.

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/levels.htm

 

[rmh159]

This is where learning to use the histogram comes in. You don't have to rely on having your monitor prefectly calibrated.

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/levels.htm

Good call... if you use the histogram for a B&W pic it's pretty easy to pull out the pure black... just move the sliders in towards the center until you get the desired affect. If you move both the black and the white you should get some strong contrast.

Like this.

Good Luck!

 

[midget patrol]

This is where learning to use the histogram comes in. You don't have to rely on having your monitor prefectly calibrated.

http://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/levels.htm

hooray for histograms! They really are very helpful.