[Photo-SIG] How to fix uneven lighting?

[Claus Barr]

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Hi Dave!

As a challenge I tried to play with your sample photo (Yes the photo was very compressed!).
First I tried to fix the very left side of the photo not bothering about the right side, just to see what was possible. You can do nothing in this side of the photo, there is no information at all hidden in that part of the photograph (at least not in this compressed version). What to do? Unfortunately (in this context) I do use the very excellent photoediting program: "PhotoImpact10" (Ulead). It has a function where you artificially can add "sunshine" in different directions and weighted around a moveable line. So I added "sunshine" to the left of the photo and afterward adjusted saturation, lightness and contrast (version 'B'). Another way to do it, is to apply a neutral gradient density filter i.e. darken the right side of the photo and then afterwards lift the intire image in regard to lightness, gamma and contrast (version 'A'). May be this gives you some hints.
I herewith return my result so you can compare (see below in his mail). You are welcome to send me the original photo so I can give it a try (direct mail, 2mb max!).

I am very surprised that this program "PhotoImpact10" (chinese) is not mentioned more often. As far as I have read, it gets very good reviews. There is almost nothing you can do in PhotoShop that you can't do in this. Many people are drowned in the possibilities of "PhotoShop" so they actually get lesser work done. No! I have no affiliation to Ulead what so ever. Just a happy user. 

Yours sincerely

Claus Barr

Who am I? I am a retired Laboratory engineer from Copenhagen Denmark. Missing someone to share my interest in digital photographing, I did find your group by "googling". And as the group seems to be an open one I have been listening to your chat and got a lot of good inspiration from you during some time. Unfortunately being on the other side of pond I could not participate in your meetings. It seems to me that you are a very nice community, having a nice time together enthusiastically sharing your interest.
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At 11:15 PM 5/12/06 -0400, Dave Lundy wrote:
>
>Can any of you tell me a good way to fix this sample photo?  Using duplicate
>layers in the screen mode lightens the entire photo, not just the left side
>that is too dark.  I assume I need to somehow create a mask, filter, or layer
>(don't really know which) that is gradually shaded from left to right, then do
>what with it???  I haven't had much luck finding a solution using Google or
>Brainboost, but I haven't tried very many variation on my search terms yet.
>
>I shrunk the size and set compression very high for e-mail - the actual image
>is much better, except for the awful lighting.
>
>I have Paint Shop Pro X, Photoshop Elements 4, and GIMP at my disposal, so if
>you have specific instructions for any of those, it would be a huge help.
>-- 
>Dave Lundy   <http://www.dma.org/~lundyd/>
>
>
>
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