My super dog photo.

I do not have PP software so this is straight out of the camera. The conditions were bright sun about 10:00AM. The photo seems washed out and I wonder what I can do to correct that next time.

30D
F4.0
1/400
ISO 100
85mm 1.8
Spot Meter

Any pointers are appreciated!!

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The lighting was "extremely harsh", high contrast light. [See the distinct shadow of the dog.]

You were shooting into the sun. [See the position of the shadow in relation to the dog.]

Since the light was from behind your subject, that further compounds the contrast of the scene by causing your subject to be silhouetted. [The dog is lighted from behind.]

Since the sun/subject/camera positions are such that direct sun rays are hitting the grass and bouncing off the grass into the camera field of view, the background grass is providing almost specular reflections directly into the camera's field of view, thus increasing the contrast of the scene.

What can you do next time to avoid all this?

Don't shoot into the sun!

Don't shoot into the sun!

Don't shoot into the sun!

Don't shoot into the sun!

Don't shoot into the sun!

Don't shoot into the sun!

...

I think if you avoid shooting in the sun, you may get better results
Happy dog though

~Ronen

So what you guys are saying is don't shoot into the sun?

Stutterbug wrote in post #8046051
So what you guys are saying is don't shoot into the sun?

I guess you could phrase it like that

~Ronen

EDIT: In terms of software, a few people around here use GIMP http://www.gimp.org/ to do their PP. (Free)

There's also the Canon Photo Professional that came with your camera, though I find on Linux the latest version doesn't run under the latest versions of Ubuntu and Wine, and it's not that good anyway. Picasa has improved massively since I first used it - almost tolerable though lacking some crucial features. GIMPs the go (out of the freeware options) for anything serious (well, there's a fork of GIMP that's even better (e.g. 16 bit colour) but needs so many other packages first it's practically impossible to install).

And for all the feedback on shooting into the sun, it's actually good that the shot's too bright here because you actually captured the darker areas of your dog's coat and could potentially get a usable picture out of this with a bit of post-processing work. It's hard to get a great picture though: harsh lighting creates sharp lines of light vs shadow that can't be restored in a decent timeframe with post-processing software.

Cheers, Tony

Cool dog! What kind is it, kind of reminds me of one of mine!

It looks like there wasn't too much clipping of the dark signals, since I can see the detail in the dog's face. Maybe a slightly higher exposure by way of wider aperture would still freeze the motion while getting more detail visible. tough though because of the brightness on the grass. Maybe if there was such a thing as a circular ND filter??

For this particular picture, I'd probably selectively lighten the area right on the dog to bring out the detail a bit more.

Cool pic though!

I think the picture will be fine if it was shot in RAW and you just hit auto in Adobe Camera Raw to bring the exposure down a bit. What's wrong with shooting into the sun? The dog silhouetted against the green grass would look great.

If it is indeed in RAW you can send me the file and I can process it for you.

The problem is there's insufficient contrast across the shadowed areas, excessive contrast between lit and shadowed areas, and a harsh transition between the two. The edits to address the first and second issue have to be selectively targetted but aren't too difficult. The last issue is a right pain to deal with, requiring very careful introduction of gradients around the transition lines. You can get it to look passable easily, but that won't stand up critically against an image that was properly lit to begin with. Cheers, Tony

Thanks for the tips guys. I think it is clear I need PP software. Unfortunatley here in Texas, not shooting in harsh sun means before 9AM and after 8AM. Not much time to shoot unless it is for wildlife. I think I also might start shooting in RAW to PP effectivly. More critique is also appreciated. Thanks.

EricTober wrote in post #8051745
Thanks for the tips guys. I think it is clear I need PP software. Unfortunatley here in Texas, not shooting in harsh sun means before 9AM and after 8AM. Not much time to shoot unless it is for wildlife. I think I also might start shooting in RAW to PP effectivly. More critique is also appreciated. Thanks.

Hey Eric,

Another option, apart from shooting early/late is to try and shoot in open shade, or at least not in the direct sun.

Robert's piece on the quality of light is a pretty good document describing such things. It's in his signature.

~Ronen