Photo help

I dont have a big camera, but like to get better pictures, and this is an issue I have.
http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic40702.jpg

When taking picture when the weather is good, but were skiing in shadow, the pictures come out a bit dark, but sharp.

What do you do to prevent this? Change exposure/white balance/iso?
I have tried playing a bit with the different settings, but It's often hard to see how they come out when looking at the small screen on camera, and when youre skiing good snow its hard enough to stop and taking pictures.

I have tried to salvage this because I want to print it, but when playing in photoshop it either get grainy or pale. Anyone a Photoshop genious and wants to help me? (PM me for original picture)

Thanks a lot :)

Tori

I like it. Looks right to me. Skiing the trees and in the shadows. Cold and deep.

What settings did you shot this with?
Or, are you letting the camera make all the decisions?

In shadows... next time try framing w/out any sky and bright background. Position yourself so you eliminate all light areas. if letting the camera decide, then the camera is using these and the shadow foreground to balance the exposure.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Teletori

I dont have a big camera, but like to get better pictures, and this is an issue I have.
http://www.biglines.com/photos/blpic40702.jpg

When taking picture when the weather is good, but were skiing in shadow, the pictures come out a bit dark, but sharp.

What do you do to prevent this? Change exposure/white balance/iso?
I have tried playing a bit with the different settings, but It's often hard to see how they come out when looking at the small screen on camera, and when youre skiing good snow its hard enough to stop and taking pictures.

I have tried to salvage this because I want to print it, but when playing in photoshop it either get grainy or pale. Anyone a Photoshop genious and wants to help me? (PM me for original picture)

Thanks a lot :)

Tori

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As for the Photosop - try "Image - Adjust - Shadows/Highlights..." menu option. It's like operating with curves, but more user-friendly.

As for the shooting - do you use exposure correction? Some +EV is the must when you are shooting in the snow in most of the cases. Though looking at your picture I can see the peak on the background and it looks fine (as well as the surrounding sky) so exposure correction would blank it. You have to choose...

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Originally Posted by Lostinthetrees

What settings did you shot this with?
Or, are you letting the camera make all the decisions?

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Quote:

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Originally Posted by duboix

As for the shooting - do you use exposure correction?

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This is an point and shoot picture... and camera on auto.

Thanks for answers, and let them coming... :smile:

I have also heard about some Greycard (!?) to adjust white balance. Could that be what I would have needed when taking this picture?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Teletori

When taking picture when the weather is good, but were skiing in shadow, the pictures come out a bit dark, but sharp.

What do you do to prevent this? Change exposure/white balance/iso?
I have tried playing a bit with the different settings, but It's often hard to see how they come out when looking at the small screen on camera, and when youre skiing good snow its hard enough to stop and taking pictures.

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You can focus on brightening the skier in photoshop. Otherwise the exposure is right for the entire image. (sorry attached jpg is low quality, but you get the jist)

Does your camera have spot metering? That might help with typical scenes you will encounter in this situation where peaks and other background features will be extremely bright.

DONT SHOOT PICTURES IN THE SHADE, DUH.

Seriously, that pic doesnt look too bad for being in the shade, when shooting in full sun on snow, you need to over expose, or put the cmaera into a manual mode, and meter off of your hand.

Tricks...next time.

Step to the other side of this opening. You may pick up some reflected or "bounce" lighting from objects in the sun to increase the illumination on your subject. Notice there are soft shadows behind your subject. These are caused by bounce coming from the other side. You can use reflected light to get a boost in shaded areas (in the trees, couloirs, drainages, etc.).

Telephoto - tighten on subject to minimize light and white areas.

Maintain speed setting (u have good crisp focus on the action) but open the aperture (f-stop) a stop or 2 and, again... tighten/telephoto on your subject.

Thanks for good help everyone... :smile:

And bklyntrayc... I managed to only brighten skier on the pic, and it now looks sweet!

A grey card can be smart to have when shooting in snow if your camera has the option of setting the aperture and shutter time manually. What the camera tries to do is adjust the picture to match this standard grey color (don't remember what it's called) overall, which can be seen in your picture where all the snow is dominating the picture and adjusted to be a little bit darker. On the other hand, I think the picture looks great as it is.

In photoshop, I use three things. First go to Image, pull down to Adjustments, go to the arrow, pull down to Auto Levels. Try that, see if you like it or not, by going to Edit and hit the Undo/Redo, (most of the time it's better, but not always, especially not sunsets). Next go to Filter scroll down to Sharpen, open the arrow to Unsharp Mask, hit that, it will open to AMOUNT, RADIUS AND THRESHOLD. Move the arrows on each to see what happens. Stay low on the THRESHOLD (5), move the RADIUS to about (2.5 to 2.8) play with the AMOUNT (usually anywhere from about 135 to 160). Move the little square box around the image and click and you get a close up look on that spot in the in the Unsharp Mask box, that will help with the AMOUNT and RADIUS to use, then hit OK. See how much sharper your image becomes, as you lose some of the original sharpness in the scanning process. Now go back to Image, pull down to Adjustments again, go to arrow and open up Levels, move any of the three arrows, to tweak things a bit (sometimes not at all) and OK it. When you close the image it will ask you if you want to Save Changes, if you like say yes if not you can start over if you like. Works for me.

As for the image, the original looks pretty close to what has to be done, as to not blow that far mountain over exposed.