Editing help

CW Jones · Jun 16, 2009

Alright so I took the family picture last weekend and my grandmother would like to see what I have.... I took these with my SX110is

Now I know the background isnt good at all... but thats the best I could do because she wanted it taken on the deck of the restaurant... even tho I told her it wasn't a good spot at all... that aside my biggest issue is the sky which I knew when I took the shot so I did some manual bracketing and underexposed by one and 2 stops to try and get the blown out sky to actually be the right tone haha

I am just really having an issue getting the sky to look right. the faces are good in picture 2323 so I need to use that one, as far as the sky I am not sure which looks better. any photoshop guru's out there have a few mins to spare to help me out?

these are the 3 pictures :thumbup:

good one of the people

one stop under

2 stops under

I tried putting up the biggest size possible... if anyone really thinks they can help I could send the full size images...

Baaaark · Jun 16, 2009

Okay, so you learned a valuable rule... Uneven lighting... SUCKS!!!

See how the sweet girl at the bottom is brighter than everyone else? THat's a bummer. These photos are going to be really hard to improve over what they are.

In the future, make sure you're in a place where your foreground and background are in nice, even, unharsh light.

CW Jones · Jun 16, 2009

yup lesson learned

I could tell the lighting wasn't going to be great... but I didn't think it was THIS bad haha thats why I asked for help, I can use CS3 and GIMP pretty well... but I know there are plenty of people on here that are MUCH better than me with those programs

NateS · Jun 16, 2009

You should have used a flash (diffused and preferably not the built in). Should have shot like the 2 stops underxposed and used the flash to fill light your group of people.

I did a quick fix on the 1 stop underexposed one. Someone could probably do better by combining the sky from the third photo into the first in PS...mine's just some filters in Capture NX2.

I could probably do better if I wasn't heading out the door. Download a program called the Gimp and play around with it. It's free and you can probably do a better job than my quick edit with it.

c0ps · Jun 16, 2009

best I can do in 5 min just to show ya, grab the sky from your prefered pic and copy it to your prefered exposure

ANDS! · Jun 16, 2009

If you have Photoshop, simply use the first and third image, lay one on top of the other. On the topmost image, apply a Layer Mask. You then paint "in" the details from the top image that you want over the bottom image. In this case the sky.

In future, your best bet would be to apply your on camera flash. Do not listen to the myths (and there will be many) that insist that on-camera flash is nasty. Out in the sun as you were, its going to look a lot better than indoors.

CW Jones · Jun 16, 2009

wow thank you all sooo much for helping out! I unfortunately only have GIMP on my laptop. I know how to use CS3.... just dont have it

those edited ones do look great tho! I really appreciate the help, and I am sure my grandparents will too!
I am working on getting a new DSLR in the next month or so as well, which will include a nice off-camera flash and I will hopefully be able to get better results with that. I know I messed up BIG time and I wish I could call everyone up and do it again... but they are kinda far away so that stinks!

Again thank you all so much!

c0ps · Jun 16, 2009

ANDS! said:
If you have Photoshop, simply use the first and third image, lay one on top of the other. On the topmost image, apply a Layer Mask. You then paint "in" the details from the top image that you want over the bottom image. In this case the sky.

In future, your best bet would be to apply your on camera flash. Do not listen to the myths (and there will be many) that insist that on-camera flash is nasty. Out in the sun as you were, its going to look a lot better than indoors.

Only problem with that is people have moved around and changed positions, still doable just takes little more time and by the sounds of it, he does not have photoshop

CW Jones · Jun 16, 2009

lol ya those little girls move around a LOT haha hard to get them to sit still for even one picture

brysons · Jun 16, 2009

ANDS! said:
If you have Photoshop, simply use the first and third image, lay one on top of the other. On the topmost image, apply a Layer Mask. You then paint "in" the details from the top image that you want over the bottom image. In this case the sky.

CW Jones said:
wow thank you all sooo much for helping out! I unfortunately only have GIMP on my laptop.

Follow the same instructions in The GIMP and you should be able to get similar results. It's a very competent program, altho it seems that certain operations result in things like aliasing issues - plus the interface is just bad. Although Photoshop's new "You can't see all of the options because you are in the wrong workspace" has been driving me nuts since I started using it again!

Bitter Jeweler · Jun 16, 2009

I took a stab at editing your photo, hope you don't mind.

CW Jones · Jun 16, 2009

ahahahahahhahahahahahaha omg thats amazing!!!!!!!!!!

brysons · Jun 16, 2009

In case anyone is having trouble getting started with layer masks in The GIMP, here's the 5-cent run-down.

1: Open your files and drag the background layer from one onto the other.
http://brysonsteadman.com/dump/MaskTut/Picture1.png
2: Right-click the 'top' layer and click 'Add layer mask'
http://brysonsteadman.com/dump/MaskTut/Picture2.png
3: Select 'White' or 'Black.' If you select 'Black' then you will be painting parts of the masked layer onto the layer underneath, as ANDS suggested. If you select 'White' then you will be painting parts of the masked layer off of the layer underneath, like erasing. Either way, you can edit the mask at any time to change bits of it later.
http://brysonsteadman.com/dump/MaskTut/Picture3.png
4+5: You want to be careful now, there are two editable entities that make up the same layer. The layer and it's mask. The one that is currently selected for editing has a white border. In Picture4, the mask is selected and in Picture5 the layer is selected.
http://brysonsteadman.com/dump/MaskTut/Picture4.png
http://brysonsteadman.com/dump/MaskTut/Picture5.png
6: Paint into the mask using the Paint Brush tool with the opposite of the color you selected before. You can also use grey values or a fuzzy brush to get variable transparency. You can always switch colors and add or remove transparency anywhere in the image. Here I made a few big strokes over a few faces.
http://brysonsteadman.com/dump/MaskTut/Picture6.png
Etc. You will also need to clone out some extra faces in this particular set of images.

That, plus about 10 minutes of your time and you should be able to replicate any of the edits shown here in the future. Also note, the technique of compositing different exposure settings of the same subject is generally referred to as High Dynamic Range *HDR) and depending on your images file settings, you can actually achieve a much higher range than any camera.

If I had to take this shot, I would have exposed correctly for the people, then had them clear out entirely (without kicking the tripod!) before taking an exposure of just the environment, exposed for the environment. That would make the compositing a bit easier, IMO.

Good luck. Happy shooting!

Edit: P.S. Bitter Jeweler - Awesome edit, you really did a fantastic job of emphasizing the family resemblance!

musicaleCA · Jun 16, 2009

Okay, whoa whoa whoa. For group shots, one flash will not do. You'd preferably have at least two, off to either side and pointing the light down, either on shoot-throughs or reflective umbrellas; the type of softening is down to personal taste.

It's all about balancing the exposure. In this case, you need to use the flash to bring the light on your subjects close to that of the background, so that you can expose the scene evenly.

Set your metering mode to spot metering (need to be in M to do this right), and meter on the sky, setting everything to expose for the ambient light. Then, use flash to bring-up the light on your subjects. (A little more complicated than I'm making it sound; best to use flash on manual power settings too, but you're using a P&S so I'm not going to go in depth; just know that your flash is what you use to bring up the exposure on your subjects.)

Edit: Baw. brysons beat me to the punch. Oh well... A better solution with a P&S may simply be to take one shot of everyone out of the scene, metering on the sky. Take another, metering on, say, the trees. Make sure you zoom out a big for both to give yourself wiggle room. Then take the group shots, and composite the shot that's exposed for your subjects with the shots that are exposed for the background in post. A lengthy process, and I'd say not as easy as getting the exposure right with good strong lighting, but with a P&S you might not have a choice.

Oh, and do try to pick more even lighting next time. Trees can be okay(ish) for a single person; they get nasty for groups.

CW Jones · Jun 16, 2009

ya thanks for all the tips everyone! I knew when I was taking it that is was going to be a crappy shot... but thats where she seemed to really want it to be set up

she tells me I have full control... then I have none haha