Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Touch Up Tuesday - Exposure Fix - Frosty Pines

Here's another reason to shoot RAW. You can take a terribly exposed photo and still salvage it.

This morning's frost covered much of the landscape and we had the added bonus of actual sunshine to add that sparkle. Unfortunately, I completely over exposed this scene - rows of pine trees at work. I shot it from the car and didn't have time to re-adjust the exposure.

Overexposed

But since I shot it RAW, I can adjust the exposure. This one was really blown - I adjusted the exposure -1.2 from the original. I then converted the RAW file to .JPG and finished things up in PSE - simply cropping and adding a slight vignette.

Frost Pines

For RAW processing, I am currently using Nikon's free ViewNX2, which gives the user the basic adjustments of exposure and white balance (basic, but essential!). I like that it is really pretty easy to use and reads in any custom settings I have set up in the camera. And you can't beat the price.

Even so, I am currently learning Lightroom 3 - I think that it will speed up the processing and add some functionality not available through ViewNX2.

And I am sharing another capture from this morning - the same pine trees, just a little different perspective.

Vanishing

I am linking up today to Paper Heart Camera's Touch Up Tuesday. I hope you found today's touch up information helpful!

Touch Up Tuesday's at the Paper Mama

3 comments:

  1. These are beautiful! Love the composition on last frame

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  2. Nice work on the editing... I've been using ViewNX for editing too, along with Microsoft Picture Manager. I find some of the other choice a bit too much to handle, maybe that's a good project for the new year... find a better photo editing package.

    Love the second shot, those trees offer great leading lines to draw one into the frame. Nicely done!

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  3. Great information. Love the fianl image. Nice editing work. I only use Photoshop.

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