What Did I Do Wrong?

[Risyntira]

HELP!!!!

Ok, I have brought a new camera (Sony A230Y) yesterday and have been testing it out.

my almost 6 week old puppy photos, I'm very happy with but this morning I took two of the dogs for a run and captured a STUNNING photo of Ella...

Got home, and I'm not too happy with it, I didn't want to 'touch it up' with photoshop but now I think I'll need too.

How do I improve on this type of shot?

I'm not very happy :D

Here it is... Photo is huge to show photo

[Luke W]

The image is overexposed.

The camera has tried to draw out some detail in the blacks (it wants to make the whole image 'middle grey') and so the image has become over exposed.

In photoshop - you'd use masked curves to tone down the highlights and bring a little more contrast into the blacks.

Here's a real quick and dirty example:

Edited August 27, 2009 by Luke W

[Risyntira]

Thanks for that Luke W.

I guess once I practise more and getting use to all the buttons etc then I'll become better at it.

Thanks heaps.

[rubiton]

Added a layer and multiplied - left opacity at 100 percent but you can pull it down if the colour is too rich - in photoshop. It is also possible to add extra layers the same way but you have to be careful as you can go too far which makes the colours too strong.

Overexposed images are difficult to fix

Edited August 27, 2009 by rubiton

[kja]

Or you could just use Lightroom and not worry about masks and layers and whatnot :cool:

I didn't adjust the colour or contrast or saturation or vibrance etc coz I didn't know what look you wanted or what the real colours were. I just tamed the highlights and made sure the shadows didn't go blocky. Obviously it's just a quickie as an example.

I deal with "overexposed" images a lot by choice and I've found that LR copes very well. Of course, some cameras do better than others, too. This image is pretty salvageable! Here's about 10 more seconds of sliders in Lightroom - have no idea if it's where you are going

Edited August 28, 2009 by kja

[Risyntira]

Thanks Kja, That looks great, I really like the first one.

I was after a more natural look and you did just that!