Underexposed photographs!

[mad1231moody]

Just got hold of a digital camera and I got to say the picture taken in my house are underexposed(don't know what it actually means, but I mean they are dark portions in the Pics). So suggest me a software to correct them. I tried picassa but as I increased brightness the photo lost its quality. I am not to much aware of hue,saturation,gamma etc. So please suggest me a no fuss software. My camera doesn't have much settings not much control on white balance. The ISO settings are customizable, any idea as to what ISO settings to keep for dim lit areas. Waitng for your reply.

[NucleusKore]

Unlike film photography, the beautiful thing about digital photography is that everything's there, even if it's underexposed. I hope you have the original untouched images.

Download the GIMP from http://gimp.sourceforge.net
A windows version is available.

Now I am not an expert, but I will tell you what i know. I just downloaded an underexposed image from the internet for this example.

Open the image in the GIMP

Click on Colors->Levels


Levels dialog box will open. Observe the graph and the three arrows (like fulcrums) below it, these are for Shodows, Midtones and Highlights


Move the dialog box out of the way


Drag the arrows on the right (highlighted in the snapshot below) towards the curvy graph, starting with the centre one and then the one at the end. After you move the one at the end towards the graph you will have to readjust the centre arrow.


Once satisfied click OK, and then File -> Save A Copy

[mad1231moody]

Thanks for the suggestion. I would do this trick soon enough. i would like to tell you one thing. The ca doesn't saves RAW images.,it saves in JPEG form. Will I be able to still do the trick?

[pimpom]

RAW is better for saving badly exposed photos, but you can still do a lot with jpegs too. The result may not be perfect, but it can be improved.

When asking questions like this, it will be best if you post the image, tell us the camera model, and give more details about the shooting conditions - exposure settings, whether flash was used, distance to the subject and so on.

[NucleusKore]

By "original" I mean jpeg as taken by the camera.

[Ramakrishnan]

Take care of the "original". Don't save save your changes in your original. Even I have digital camera and I also experienced this dark portions on the image. It was because(in my case) the flash was not used. I changed the setting and voila the snaps became very bright. In your case also it might be something to do with settings. you may check the below mentioned link for a small software(freeware) which I think will suit your purpose.

http://www.mediachance.com/digicam/enhancer.htm

[NucleusKore]

Originally Posted by Ramakrishnan

Take care of the "original". Don't save save your changes in your original.

That's why I suggested File -> Save a copy

[toofan]

whats ur camera model. then we can suggest the camera setting to take appropriate photos.

[mad1231moody]

My camera model is Kodak C160.

[Aspire]

Originally Posted by mad1231moody

Just got hold of a digital camera and I got to say the picture taken in my house are underexposed(don't know what it actually means, but I mean they are dark portions in the Pics). So suggest me a software to correct them. I tried picassa but as I increased brightness the photo lost its quality. I am not to much aware of hue,saturation,gamma etc. So please suggest me a no fuss software. My camera doesn't have much settings not much control on white balance. The ISO settings are customizable, any idea as to what ISO settings to keep for dim lit areas. Waitng for your reply.

Use automatic Mode for now, later when you become pro in photography take a big camera with all features.
OK?

No software can make an underexposed photograph bright

[mad1231moody]

Quite true. tried what Nucleus said but the output was not that all good. Photoshop will be able to do it but I won't bre learnign anytime soon.

[pimpom]

GIMP can do everything Photoshop can do. Even Irfanview can do a lot to improve an unsatisfactory photo. But you have to know how to use these programs - with skills gained from practice and patience, and some help from those with more experience.

If the original photo is too poor, no amount of image processing will make it perfect, but it can be improved.

I'll ask you one more time: post your original photo (reduced in size to something like 640x480 or less) along with the result of your attempt to improve it. Then we can help you see where and how it can be improved.

You might also have a look at "The Photography Thread" in Chi Chat section:
The Photography Thread

[toofan]

Oops if you have any cannon camera you would have not suffered so much.

There must be some setting disturbance.
Try to reset everything to factory default. And then took pics in auto mode. As for these pics auto mode is the best.
And if using manual ISO then use higher settings for indore photography and where there is low light.

And for rest try to stick to low ISO such as 80 or 100.

Rest Try using GIMP or Paint.NEt and if you don't know much try automatic image edit option if you were lucky then you will get your image other wise try with manual editing.

[NucleusKore]

Also set the white balance to automatic