alpinelakespilot2000
Well Known Member
In reading Doug's front page story on his early morning photos, I noticed that he had labeled some of them as being "unprocessed." For those who don't know much about it, there is a really simple "processing" trick to get rid of the gray "haze" that covers many photos. We don't always notice it until we see what the photo should look like. Digital photos seem most susceptible, and shooting through something like plexi seems to exacerbate it even more. The way to get rid of that haze, and thus improve 90% of the photos we take, is to use the "levels" feature on your favorite photo editing software. Usually you'll see it listed under the menu where you adjust brightness and contrast. It's super simple to learn to use. I'd try to explain it, but probably better is to use the help feature on your photo software and type in "levels" into the search function. (I used Adobe Photoshop Elements, which is a much cheaper, more user-friendly version of Adobe Photoshop, but I think the basic photo editor that comes with Windows PC's probably does it too.)
Here's an example drawn from Doug's pictures. (Hope you don't mind Doug--I'm not making any money off them)...
Shot one (pulled direction from Doug's site, he left it unprocessed):
And the one I spent 30 seconds on adjusting the levels:
See the difference? It's not like you're artificially changing the color such as when you add saturation... it just removes the gray "film" that digital cameras seem prone to leaving behind. Some pictures benefit from this process even more than todays pics from Doug, so it's always worth checking if you find a picture that you really like the composition of. There are a ton of other things you can do to significantly improve your pictures through "post-processing," but this is easily the easiest and best bang for the buck.
Hope this helps you take better $100 pictures on your way to getting the $100 hamburgers!
BTW, Doug, my best pictures are still taken from the G3 I bought in 2003! I'm about ready to spring for a new G12 though. The G series are fantastic cameras!
Here's an example drawn from Doug's pictures. (Hope you don't mind Doug--I'm not making any money off them)...
Shot one (pulled direction from Doug's site, he left it unprocessed):
And the one I spent 30 seconds on adjusting the levels:
See the difference? It's not like you're artificially changing the color such as when you add saturation... it just removes the gray "film" that digital cameras seem prone to leaving behind. Some pictures benefit from this process even more than todays pics from Doug, so it's always worth checking if you find a picture that you really like the composition of. There are a ton of other things you can do to significantly improve your pictures through "post-processing," but this is easily the easiest and best bang for the buck.
Hope this helps you take better $100 pictures on your way to getting the $100 hamburgers!
BTW, Doug, my best pictures are still taken from the G3 I bought in 2003! I'm about ready to spring for a new G12 though. The G series are fantastic cameras!
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