Dark images

[Alva]

I have an A75.
Nearly all my photos turn out too dark when I use the Auto setting and I am too much of a novice to rely on my own exposure settings.
I am able to bring the photos back to life with PSE 3 but would prefer to have the correct exposure in the first place.
Please advise me how to adjust the default auto setting so that PSE flash-ups are not necessary.

[MattyB]

i'm not sure what a 'A75' is lol, but hopefully i can help..

i touched base with the manual and exposure settings for the first time only a few weeks ago and i was deeply impressed.
+ means brights (the shutter stays open longer and it lets me more light meaning more detail and a brighter photo)
- means darker, (opposite of what i said up there ^)
ISO, i'm not sure what it does but i always leave that on auto haha

if you're taking photos at night, maybe a tripod would be a wise investment
then put the exposure to +2, (because +2 will leave the shutter open for a longer time to allow more light in, it will also be harder to keep the photos from blurring, so holding it still will be a mission in itself, so i tripod will fix that)
also, if it's anything like my IXUS 30, u can 'white balance adjust' mines auto, i just select that option and it will pause for a moment and adjust to what it see's. maybe that would work for dark scenes?

i'm not sure, my suggest above all would be to go out.. and f**k around with the camera lots, try the same shot with every setting, and then play around with the manual settings, see which works best :)


also, are u ONLY looking at them on the computer? maybe print them out and see how they work, it may be that your monitor is too dark :\
i dunno, hope i helped, even if just a bit.

-matt

[PhotosGuy]

Nearly all my photos turn out too dark when I use the Auto setting and I am too much of a novice to rely on my own exposure settings. Everyone has to start somewhere, & I suggest that you start by learning the histogram (if you have one?)
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/expose-right.shtml
Other things to think about when you get to it:
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=52418

[Alva]

Think I found the answer to my own question.
Seems that my monitor calibration does not correspond to my printer calibration.
The photos taken by my Canon A75 look fine in the LCD on the camera and they print out reasonably similar to the camera although slightly darker. The problem seems to be with my monitor (CRT). I tried to turn up the brightness via the built in monitor adjustments but found the brightness was already set at its highest. I therefore used Windows XP display/settings/Adnvanced/Attributes to turn up the brightness and it seems to have worked, at least in part.
I seem to remember reading about some software that will calibrate monitor to printer but can't remember the name.

[Moppie]

Adobe Gamma is what most people use to calibrate thier monitors, it comes with Photoshop.

Some monitors also come with thier own calibration software, and you can always try a search of somewhere like www.tucows.com for any free or shareware programs.

Also try a good seatch in the post proccessing forum, I see to remember a thread in there in the past which mentioned some other usefull programs.

[Alva]

Thanks.
I do have Adobe Gamma although I never knew what it was for.
Hope I don't make things worse, like I usually do <g>