New to photography and editing so take it easy on me. Using a Fuji point & shoot. I don't understand a lot of the terms or how to use the filters that's why I went the easy route with Picasa. Basically I have been trying to improve the low lighting shots and remove shadows and glare. Open to any advice


1.


2.


3.


4.

#2 and #4 are underexposed. You can't fix that in post. Except to a certain extent if you shoot raw.

#3 is underexposed in some areas and overexposed in others. This would be a good case for some conservative use of HDR. Key word being conservative.

Great compositions though!

My advice would be to learn Photoshop, GIMP, or Aperture (Photoshop being the easiest and probably best, imo). Picasa is extremely limited. It's worth the time invested to learn better software. There's plenty of tutorials on YouTube.

Thank you DJ Craig.

I see there is not much you can do with Picasa. Time for some photoshop tutorials.

Glare, are you talking about blown out bright areas (overexposed)? If so, photoshop and even photoshop express for the iphone has highlight recovery.


yours:


My edit using Photoshop express app on my iphone using a crappy small 79kb image capture from this site:


You'd be surprised how you can compensate in post processing. Another trick I use is a high power flashlight with white tissue paper (for wrapping presents) covering the beam of light to cast even light and allow my camera to capture more (worked awesome when I was shooting with my iphone). I'm not familiar with your camera, but there may be settings such as white balance and ISO that would help you achieve more with the camera.

Although it seems that everyone uses Photoshop, it does cost money. I happen to use GIMP at home right now. It's free and is a "real" photo editing software program. It doesn't do everything a commercial package will, but it does a lot.

Abby Normal

Agreed with Abby. I use GIMP since I have already pirated enough software to go to Bill Gate's hell for eternity. It felt good to download something legit. It has great functionality, but will be limited in the eyes of a true pro.

That being said, Your shots are great! Everything seems to have good lighting, and a "subject", which is hard to do in some abandonments. I really like the composition in #1. The only thing I would change in the pic are the sunglasses on the desk. It seems a little incongruous for the shot. If you're getting shots like that with a point and shoot, then you will do amazing things with a better setup.

Cheers!