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Help making a dark exposure look normal


porter

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Hi, this is my first time posting. I took this shot in Death Valley National park and cant get it to look right when I brighten it using the simple and common single click button methods... can anyone make this photo look normal? Thanks!

28623152016_16a1faca5f_b.jpg

by California Reptile & Amphibian Appreciation.
 
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Hi porter and Welcome to PSG

It appears this image is Licensed to California Reptile & Amphibian Appreciation and the owner has disabled downloads
The owner has disabled downloading of their photos

You mentioned that you took this photo are you a member of the above Appreciation?

Untitled.jpg

Here's a quick edit with watermark

image.jpg
 
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I have uploaded the image to PSG and it's credited. The image can be used here on our forum for teaching purposes only. We can not edit this image for you, we can only instruct you in how it can be done.

Any and all members have the choice to participate in helping with the OP's request or not.

I'm moving this to the general Photoshop area.
 
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...cant get it to look right when I brighten it using the simple and common single click button methods.

If you want a single click method, use a Levels adjustment and slide the white triangular slider to the left, as shown below. You can also play around with Vibrancy and a Shadows & Highlights adjustmen.

Landscape.jpg
 
Because I wasn't sure about the copyright / ownership status of the image you want edited, I decided to edit a similar one (that you have not expressed any interest in). I also am posting the result at low resolution to make the commercial use of this tweaked version very unlikely, but still be useful for teaching purposes.

I started with this image ...

full_size-00_orig-698px_wide.jpg

Like the image you asked about, it is underexposed, has low contrast, low saturation and odd colors. It almost looks like it was taken through the tinted window of a car.

I then took it into Photoshop through "Adobe Camera Raw", and made the major global corrections there. I then took it into PS and applied some noise reduction, sharpening, and final color tweaks + burning and dodging, and came up with this ...

full_size-tjm01-acr-ps03a_cropped-02_698px_wide.jpg


If you are interested in the details, I'll be happy to fill you in, but you will likely need to be at least an intermediate level user of PS to be familiar with the techniques I used (eg, large radius unsharp masking, gradients, anti-shake sharpening in recent versions of PS, layer masks, selective color adjustments, etc.)

HTH,

Tom M

PS - My color adjustments were based on my own memory of the colors in that area from visits several years ago. There's a good chance my memory of the colors is flawed, LOL, but hopefully, I'm not too far off.
 
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