How To Save a Bad Photo (Without Photoshop)
Friday, May 6, 2011 at 9:08AM I dare to say it. Most of the bad photos can be made into good ones. It takes a little creativity, some free tools, and time.
In this episode of "How To Save a Bad Photo" I'll try to illustrate how to save a dark photo with distracting colorful elements... a picture that sucked so bad I almost deleted it. But I'm glad I did not.
How
Start with the original photo. The photo is way too dark, you can barely see the people in it, and the colorful banners are distracting.
Convert a photo to black/white. It still looks dark, but you solved the problem with the distracting banners.
Now lighten up the photo a lot. Do not worry about the background beeing too light. Focus only on the skin of the subjects. I used the "fill light" feature in Picasa (download for free here). Picasa is very easy to use and has just the right amount of features to do simple photo editing.
Now fix the problem with the superlight background by adding shadows. Make sure the subjects won't get too dark.
Once the darks look good, add a little bit of punch to the photo by adding highlights. Do not go overboard with the highlights, or else you'll loose the detail in the lightest parts of the photo, but sometimes it's worth adding a little bit more if it helps to make the faces more contrasting.
Age the photo by adding a little bit of warmth (use "color temperature" slider in Picasa).
Add a little wignetting to direct the eyes to the middle of the photo.
In the next episodes of "How To Save a Bad Photo", I'll talk about how to save camera phone photos, badly composed photos, bright photos, and other products of photographer's misfortune. If you want me to write an episode about a specific bad photo you have in mind, send me the photo and I will do my best.
Reader Comments (3)
Great idea :)
Nice job with little work. A little vignetting would help pull your attention into the picture's subjects and away from the bight borders of this pic. Thanks for your tips!
Jim
Very true. Little vignetting would be nice.