Photoshop Elements

[rickb]

I have a couple of photos I am looking to edit.

Specifically, I want to lighten up the exposure in the foreground, without impacting the exposure in the background.

Is this something that I can do in Photoshop elements?

Is there a better program ($100 Max) for this kind of thing?

As a bonus, I wouldn't mind making the sky in look more blue.

Thoughts?

[OregonHiker]

I have a couple of photos I am looking to edit.

Specifically, I want to lighten up the exposure in the foreground, without impacting the exposure in the background.

Is this something that I can do in Photoshop elements?

Is there a better program ($100 Max) for this kind of thing?

As a bonus, I wouldn't mind making the sky in look more blue.

Thoughts?


Look at adobe lightroom

[rickb]

Just to prove I am paying attention, I did.

Its $299!

[RITBlake]

Rick Stop Whatever You Are Doing.

Open Your Internet Browser

Go To Google.com

Google: Gimp Photo Editor

Thank Me Later

It's Just Like Photoshop And freeeee

[RITBlake]

allright allright twist my arm.

here's the direct link

http://www.gimp.org/

[rickb]

Since you were a SOBO, I know that you must know what you are talking about.

I will download tomorrow.

I will save the thanks for later!

[winger]

Are you shooting in RAW format? If so then yes Photoshop Elements will do that for you. Don't think you'll have any luck if shooting JPEG.

[RITBlake]

Are you shooting in RAW format? If so then yes Photoshop Elements will do that for you. Don't think you'll have any luck if shooting JPEG.

Meh, jpeg will be ok. Quality won't be as good as RAW though.

You will have to manually isolate the areas you want to over/under expose.

Simple though, make your selection with a tool like lasso, feather your selection so its smooth, and adjust your exposure.

Let me know if I can help, I spent half my day at work in photoshop

[RITBlake]

Let me know if I can help, I spent half my day at work in photoshop


Working! not playing around in photoshop :)

[Bob S]

I use a program called Vueprint to edit pictures. It's shareware (although I have since bought it.) It allows you to change file extensions formats, darken & lighten photos, resize them. And a lot of other things.

My takes a picture in JPG format, the file size of the picture will be 1.5 megs. Vueprint can cut it down to 100k or less and the picture looks the same and is still JPG. I have no idea how it does it, but it works and is nice when storing them on-line.


If you do a search for Vueprint, I’m sure you will find it to download.

[fiddlehead]

Meh, jpeg will be ok. Quality won't be as good as RAW though.

You will have to manually isolate the areas you want to over/under expose.

Simple though, make your selection with a tool like lasso, feather your selection so its smooth, and adjust your exposure.

Let me know if I can help, I spent half my day at work in photoshop

I often do this in photoshop (CS2) how do you "feather your selection"?

Thanks in advance, Photoshop is a little too complicated for me sometimes and i only use it for tougher problems (like the OP's problem)

[RITBlake]

I often do this in photoshop (CS2) how do you "feather your selection"?

Thanks in advance, Photoshop is a little too complicated for me sometimes and i only use it for tougher problems (like the OP's problem)

It's select > feather

Experiment with the scale.

Let's say you want to blur out the background of portrait shot. You would make a loose selection around the subject. Then select > feather. Try like 50 pixels. You will not see a change in your selection.

But when you run your Gaussian blur or other blur effect it will blend smoothly and starting w/ a little blur on the edge of the subject to a full blur in the background

[RITBlake]

It's select > feather

Experiment with the scale.

Let's say you want to blur out the background of portrait shot. You would make a loose selection around the subject. Then select > feather. Try like 50 pixels. You will not see a change in your selection.

But when you run your Gaussian blur or other blur effect it will blend smoothly and starting w/ a little blur on the edge of the subject to a full blur in the background

The effect I describe above is displayed in the post below. Notice how at the center of the photo there is a very sharp focus point. Then the blur gets more and more noticeable as it gets closer to the right edge of the photo. All done by feathering your selection. The color is tweaked as well obviously

[RITBlake]

Here's another one. This is from Pennsylvania taken on a plain digital point and shoot

http://www.maine2georgia.com/mikeportrait.jpg

[RITBlake]

The original

http://www.maine2georgia.com/VApics/slides/P9200144.JPG

[Skidsteer]

Here's another one. This is from Pennsylvania taken on a plain digital point and shoot

http://www.maine2georgia.com/mikeportrait.jpg

Ahh! :eek: Stargate!

[Nightwalker]

Rick Stop Whatever You Are Doing.

Open Your Internet Browser

Go To Google.com

Google: Gimp Photo Editor

Thank Me Later

It's Just Like Photoshop And freeeee

Not exactly like Photoshop. Better in some ways, especially the way the clone brush works. Nice for selections as well. I go back and forth, according to what I'm doing.

I like Photoshop better when working with lots of layers and variable transparencies and opacities, but that may be because I've only been using The Gimp* for a little while and Photoshop for years.

*The Gnu Image Manipulation Program.

[UCONNMike]

Huh?

I don't get the reference?

[RITBlake]

Not exactly like Photoshop. Better in some ways, especially the way the clone brush works. Nice for selections as well. I go back and forth, according to what I'm doing.

I like Photoshop better when working with lots of layers and variable transparencies and opacities, but that may be because I've only been using The Gimp* for a little while and Photoshop for years.

*The Gnu Image Manipulation Program.

Considering what you get for free from GIMP, it's pretty amazing. I use PS exclusively but I have installed GIMP on my laptop and have used it successfully when working on projects from home.

[Nightwalker]

Huh?

I don't get the reference?

Are you talking about the asterisked name? That's what GIMP stands for.

[Skidsteer]

Huh?

I don't get the reference?

Blake's photo alteration made it look like a stargate was opening on the right side of the photo.

Reference was to the TV show 'Stargate'. :)

[Tennessee Viking]

I would look into the free stuff first. Experiment with Google's Picassa program. Its pretty basic, comparable to Elements in simplicity.

I find Adobe Photoshop Elements as Adobe's way of making everyone think they need Photoshop. They give you the simplest tools of cropping, brightness/contrast controls, basic filters. And you can find that on many freeware programs.

If you want something close to Photoshop look into Corel Draw and Paint Ship Pro. Its the Canadian version for PS. Corel can found at many office supply stores. And its a bit on the clunky side I think. It was and still is used in a lot of clipart publishing. It uses the old front/back layer system. And its a bit more linear. But I find that its transparencies are lot more easier to use than PS. I have seen scaled down versions around $200, then advanced versions going way up.

Paint Shop Pro is your poor mans Photoshop. I have only experimented with it a couple times. Its a bit tempermental but it can get the job done. Depending on the version, its around $80-100.

I could never get GIMP to run right on my system, when it first came out. And constantly updated.

[Fiddler]

Check http://www.oldversion.com/ for older, free, legal versions of commercial software. Photo editing and a bunch of other good programs.

[The Scribe]

Rick Stop Whatever You Are Doing.

Open Your Internet Browser

Go To Google.com

Google: Gimp Photo Editor

Thank Me Later

It's Just Like Photoshop And freeeee


I agree 1000%. I have Gimp running on 1000 laptops. Excellent. Can't beat the price.

[Painted Turtle]

GIMP, Elements, Lightroom, and PS all will work, but working with JPEG as was pointed there are a lot of things that you got to look at. First what was the original size you took the photo at did you take it at the highest res the camera will allow? How good is the lens and now rock solid were you. With out a tripod there is always movement. Have you open and saved these files after editing them? I mention these because JPEG is effected big time by these things. Every time you open, edit and close a JPEG you lose info. This is not saying you can not get a good work over. As most Photographers will tell you You only have to please yourself. Convert the file to TIFF then work on it. Never work on the original and save over it!

[rafe]

PT: you have a point about JPG, but don't overstate it. If you're going to edit a JPG, don't save it back to disk as JPG, but as a TIF. Use TIF for "works in progress."

As for rick b's original request, basically any photo editor with selections and/or alpha channels will do. But take care, because it's easy to end up with a fake-looking result. For example: the image that appears earlier in this thread (original in Msg. #15) is taken on a cloudy day, where contrast is low. Human eyes are sensitive to that stuff. If you start making selective adjustments to contrast, brightness, color... most folks will see right through that.

[GGS2]

There are lots of differences between jpeg and tiff file formats, but from the point of view of data preservation, tje thing to be aware of is that jpeg permits lossy compression. If you use jpeg for camera or work in progress, and you want more than snap-shot quality, make sure your camera and save functions are set to the highest quality (SHQ on my old Canon), or 1 or 0 compression level, or 100% quality, however your system defines it. The type of compression used at this level is the same as the tiff compression, which is lossless. That is, when expanded, it reproduces the raw image file pixel for pixel.

Tiff also allows expanded color depth and alternate color encodings, which are of lesser significance in this context.

Take away info: The ordinary setting on some cameras is for a distinctly compressed jpeg setting. This delivers a lot less information than the high quality setting, but permits you to store more photos on the card. If you don't need the extra card space and you expect to want large prints or to do some image manipulation, switch the camera to high quality mode.

[Sly]

Another free program that's supposed to work well but with an easier to learn than GIMP is Paint.NET

http://www.getpaint.net/

[rafe]

Another free program that's supposed to work well but with an easier to learn than GIMP is Paint.NET

http://www.getpaint.net/

Yeah, it's a nice little program, considering the cost :D -- but it doesn't have alpha channels.

[RITBlake]

Since you were a SOBO, I know that you must know what you are talking about.

I will download tomorrow.

I will save the thanks for later!

Rick, how'd you make out?