PP Help

The only PP program I have is the Canon Digital Photo Professional that came with my camera. I have a few pictures that would look much better if I could selectively turn the brightness down on the background while either maintaining or turning the brightness up in the foreground. Could someone tell me how to do this? Thanks!

I could send someone the RAW file via email if you'd like, but it is too large to attach here.

Lightroom is a great tool for this. Aperture 2 from what I heard is good for doing the tweaks you mention as well, but I've yet to use it.

You can also do it in photoshop by opening the image, then creating a layer above the the original image, change the layer's blend mode to soft light and use a brush with about 8% opacity to burn and dodge the background to your liking. Black will "burn," white will "dodge."

If you have lightroom, you can process the image using the exposure sliders, contrast sliders, curves and levels. I'd process the original raw file once for the background, then again for your foreground, then merging both images in photoshop via layers.

I don't know much about CDPP, except I never installed it lol. I don't know if GIMP will open raw files, but that's a free alternative to photoshop, might want to give it a go.

While you can fix those backlit shots with Photoshop, it is much easier to do it in camera. Try turning up exposure compensation at the time of the shot or using a bit of fill flash.