I need help...don't know how to get the backgound to show up

crystalclear · Jul 6, 2011

I was shooting some pics of my cousin with her baby belly before her baby shower and we just decided to go play at this really pretty place . It's an old mill and had a water fall type thing..i guess it's like a dam...anyways, in this picture the waterfall is behind her...but its so blown out you can't see it. What did I do wrong, and what can I do to fix it.....I just downloaded gimp but do not know how to use it yet. Any advice would be appreciated...just wondering how I can get the background to show up better. Thanks!

Sammie_Lou · Jul 6, 2011

I don't know how to fix that but the pose is a little odd...the way it's cropped, it sort of looks like she's in the position to give birth.

joealcantar · Jul 6, 2011

I would not worry about the water , concentrate on getting the subject matter.
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Shoot well, Joe

shortpants · Jul 6, 2011

I've never used gimp. Personal opinion aside whether I would even bother, the reason it looks like that is because there was more light in the background than on the woman. So if you properly expose her, the background will be over exposed. I mean you could try burning in the background if you want, there's various ways to do it (again I don't have gimp).

Robin Usagani · Jul 6, 2011

Expose the water and background and underexpose the subject. Add flash.

The_Traveler · Jul 6, 2011

While your brain and eyes can sort out a scene where there are widely different brightnesses, your camera doesn't do as well.
If the scene has a high dynamic range and there are important objects that get widely differing amounts of light, it is not simple or easy to expose for both without some added work.

You can expose for the bright areas and use flash to light up the dark spot
You can blend different exposures or
you can dow some post-processing to get the bright and the dark areas into the same range.

Any of these require a bit more experience and skill.

I would suggest you reshoot this at the very end of teh day when the sun is low and the subject can be in the same amount of lighjt aas the flass.

crystalclear · Jul 6, 2011

thank you all so much for the help!!! I truly appreciate it

Mike_E · Jul 6, 2011

Levels left slider to the right a touch, middle slider to the right about 12.

The .jpg is very small and I've just had my eyes dilated so that's the best I can do..

HTH

Oh, I can see now. The background is toast I'm afraid, you'll have to reshoot that. It's OK though If you go to the exact same spot and time of day and expose the scene properly you can lift her out of the first photo and put her in the second and you'll be fine.

prodigy2k7 · Jul 6, 2011

Its a backlit scene. She is in the shade while the background is in direct sunlight. You need some more light on the subject or less light on the background (good luck with that part)... Best way is to put her in the sunlight and diffuse the sun light or add some flash etc...

480sparky · Jul 6, 2011

The bulk of the waterfall is totally blown out. It's pure white. Unless you shot this in raw or bracketing some shots, there's no details in the waterfall to work with. The best you can do is turn the pure white water a shade of gray. You might be able to darken the grass & trees fairly easily, but the waterfall as it is it a total loss.