Sun-darkend digital photos

[Restrain]

Passing along a trick I figured out. How many times have you photographed a house only to see an amorphus black blob when the photos are downloaded? With the high sun around here, its often, and most download software doesn't have the ability to fix it. However, unlike film, all the data's there for the editing. An inexpensive program called Corel Photo House can take that black blob using "touchup" and adjusting contrast and brightness and make a very usable, very visible house out of it.

 

[airphoto]

Excellent ..

However, ToolBox includes a piccie editing feature right in the appraisal software that will (manually) allow one to do the same thing ..

 

[Ted Martin]

Microsofts Photo Editor software can do a similar thing. Click on the toolbar tab (Image) then (Autobalance), or you can do it manually.

We use the ACI software and you can edit the image manually, I'm sure that Total and Toolbox have a similar function.

 

[Caterina Platt]

RStrahn,

What kind of camera are you using? I found a way to fix this from the camera end on my Kodak DC215. Also, I'm a bit spoiled with my alamode, there's a photo optimizer right in the program to add brightness.

If you're using a cheapie Kodak digital, you have to either trick the light sensor by holding your clip board or a hat over the top, out of the lense range or manually up the exposure.

 

[Tim The Enchanter]

The clip board held up to block the glaring sun from the lens works for me. And there is usually no shortage of sun around here. 8)

 

[Bemis Pownall]

stand in the shade or shot from inside car.
and always take more then one picture in adverse conditions

 

[Terrel L. Shields]

I have always attributed the problem to the camera. Most digitals do not seem to have zone light metering or do it poorly. Likewise, I am convinced that digital images have less "film" latitude than real film. I noticed that if one does not shoot with the sun behind them and low this time of year, the pix are always too contrasty. Mid day shots into the sun are horrid.

I have a small program called SPRY that came with Packard Bell years ago. It will not print, but will fix and save pictures relatively easy. Also a very old EZ Photo program I have kept is still about the best software around for quick editing of pictures. It is so good a techie tried to find a copy of it after he saw how good it works. I have used Paperport and although it is a little slow, works quite well. Adobe Bus. Ed Photo Delux is much faster and easier than Adobe Elements imho for detail work.

ter

 

[msking]

I use an Olympus 360 DL that has a setting called "spot" mode. After you set the camera for "spot", point it towards the darkest part of a backlit shot, press the shutter halfway and pause. The camera calculates the light based on this reading, even after you move the camera to recompose the shot. Very useful, and I imagine many digital cameras have the same feature (my camera is not particularly expensive).

As others have mentioned, WinTotal lets you clean up/brighten up your photos (including cropping) with the photo optimizer.

Re an earlier comment about taking more than one photo: I now take two shots of each comp and the required subject shots (what the heck - they are free). One day my SmartMedia card went "bad" - dunno what happened, but about a third of the photos were scrambled and I had to go back out to take more photos.