How would you edit these photos?

What editing program do you have?
I usually just screw around with the levels and the saturation in photoshop until it looks good. There's not set "formula."

Also, it helps to start with good photos (with proper contrast/etc). I rarely use the flash when photographing the dollies; it washes their faces out like crazy. Just get some bright lamps, or go outside.

C:

Yup. There's my two cents. Hopefully it helps you at least a bit >>

 

Well I really really suck with photoshop, but I just did a couple quick things on it that I think helped make it brighter. . .I know you mentioned that you don't have photoshop, but I am not sure what photoediting programs you do have ^^;;
Edit: Sorry! I didnt' see your post above ^^;

Anywhoo, I spent less than a minute to see how just doing minor color adjustment etc. on photoshop would help, and I think it did come out brighter. I just used auto-color (correction) and faded it to where it looked like a natural shade and then did the same with auto-levels. Then I sharpened the eyes a little because they looked a bit blurry in the original picture. Then I used the blur tool for a little of the noise on the leg (which I only saw once I blew up the picture lol) Anyway, as I said this is a really quicky photoshop thing that a lot of people use for their pics so I decided to do it on this one.

Edit: I just noticed you said you used lamp light. . .I think maybe if you use real-day light bulbs it could help with you correcting the colors more easily and daylight near a window is nice too ^^

 

You can try to use the freeware program called GIMP (Irfranview isn't an editing program and it tends to do odd things when you use the "resize" function, so please try another program.)
http://www.gimp.org/

I used Adobe Photoshop, though I believe GIMP offers many of the same functions. What I did first was to manually adjust the levels (auto level, in the case, washed out his face). Then I sharpened the entire image and faded the sharpen by 50%. I created a "brightness/contrast" adjustment layer (brightness +10/ contrast +10). I selectively highlighted parts of his face and hands, his entire leg and the blue draping on this layer. Then I blurred his right cheek a little bit (left side of his face in the picture ) because there was some pixelation. Enjoy!

 

They're out of focus a bit.
You should try getting some photos that are better in focus, that'd be a better base to start with.
Starting with better indirect natural lighting would help a lot.
Take photos outside or near a large window

however, I was able to pull this out of it:

 

Your photos are abit blurry so even if you edited it, it wouldnt look so good[I've had this problem before, so I know] but yours are salvagable[sp?] Here's after I edited it in photoshop.



Ummm.. I did a bunch'a stuffs to it, like brighten, sharpen, did a gradient map[which made it softer looking-I'm a sucker for that XD], made it smaller[big photos = D:] and added borders ;3 [and more, but you cant really see it, lols]

 

It would be better if your photo wasn't so blurry, but I like photoshop so I gave it a go:



Photoshop CS2. I wrote down what I did as I went if you'd like to see that. I would also recommend GIMP as the best free program, by the way.

 

Here's my play-by-play for you. Though as everyone said, your photos being out of focus do make it a bit more difficult to make look good than others.

 

basically like what everyone else said you, it's difficult to edit a photograph that has poor lighting to begin with. once you start putzing with it in photoshop you're going to lose information and lose quality on your picture..



notice the histogram or 'levels' on your photo? Do you see that high wall on the left side? That means you have lost information in your shadow areas. also notice how your line after that is totally flat, your midtones, and whites are lacking in exposure that's why.



one of mine.. notice how the histogram is clean on both sides? I have no information lost and the picture is as it was exposed in the camera to have maximum information included.. which means a better quality photo in the end.

most cameras, even point in shoots you can bring up your histogram while you shoot to great the best quality lighting! check your manual to see if your camera has that available.

I also edited your photo by tweaking the curves, sizing it down a little bit, sharpening the entire photograph, lightening the eyes a bit and slightly lowering the saturation, this was my final product:

 

- Used the sharpen filter once, then went in and sharpened some of the face (particularly the eyes) by hand with the sharpen tool.

- New layer. Added a dark circle gradient to soften the corner of the fabric, then (on another new layer) brushed over it with a large soft brush and set it to 80% opacity.

- New layer. Used the fill tool to add a scanline pattern. Used a large soft eraser to delete the scanlines over the doll, then used the same eraser at 50% to erase the scanlines not on the edges. Set the layer to overlay 60%. (This isn't needed or anything, it's just something I sometimes do, haha)

- Applied a purple and yellow gradient map. Set it to color dodge 25%.

- New layer. Used image > apply image and blurred the background and some parts of the kimono with the blur tool. Set this layer to 60% opacity.

- New layer. Filled with very dark blue. Set to exclusion.

- New layer. Applied image. Set to soft light 60%.

- Applied a selective color layer. Edited yellows, blues, and magentas.

- Applied a photo filter in magenta.

- Added text. Cropped out some of the empty space on the top. Added a border.

Sorry it's kind of disorganized, that's how I actually work, haha. I generally don't play with levels, curves, or brightness/contrast; I'm just weird.

 

Alright, I only have PS elements 3 but I'll give it a whirl.



The only three things I did were:
- sharpened the photos
- darkened the shadows and midtones
- added a faux vignette thing on the edges with the burn tool.


If you're having trouble with lighting, I use two bright lamps for my indoor photography. One on each side of the doll to balance out everything. :3
I find that this helps a lot with more "natural" indoor lighting.

 

if you don't have photoshop, I'd really recommend getting adobe elements, which is going to have all the bits of photoshop you want, but is quite cheap. I got a version free with my bamboo wacom. Plus, if you go to sites like coffeeshop you can find out how to install and use free actions, which make editing a lot easier.

Unless you are going for a particularly bleached out look, I would set the exposure compensation down on your camera, so your images are slightly under exposed. If you do this, you can lighten it is PS or any editing program using levels, but if you over expose, the pixels are burnt out, and are gone.

So far as lighting, inside I have a SAD lamps, one of the cheap ones, I have it knocking around for use with other things but it's quite good. Lamps with daylight bulbs can do ok, but you need several of them carefully positioned for the effect you want. Daylight outside or near a window is always good, though.

 

What i used was Cam Raw on Bridge and then open it on photoshop cs5 and fix up some important parts (eyes and color)

 

I don't know if anyone's mentioned this, but if you are using Photoshop, you can try the Auto Contrast and Auto Levels (Or any of the other "Auto" settings under edit really). It generally brings the colors and shadows out to what it would be more properly. Though keep in mind, sometimes it'll lean towards whatever color you have the most of (like say blue for instance) and but a funny blue hue to everything. It's just helpful if you want to do a quick and easy edit. C:

 

I'm hopeless with photoshop but my actual photography isn't bad. If you're using indoor lamps instead of flash (I can understand why) then diffuse the light. When I use my flash I cover it with a small piece of greaseproof paper - from the cooking section in the supermarket. It's cheap and a great photography tool. You can always spread a sheet of it in front of your light. it will mean the light is faded a little so you won't have anything too dark or too light. Perhaps your lights are a little too close in some of the photo shoots too, play around with them a little and see what angles you prefer them to be at.

NOTE: Be careful placing greaseproof paper too close to the bulb, it can burn if the bulb is hot. Keep it in front of, but away from the bulb itself by hanging it in front of the lamp.

I know of one photographer who uses a white plastic carrier bag in the same way but when I tried it the whiteness was too much, I prefer the paper because it's a cream colour so it softens the look of the picture.

Basically the more you can do with your camera and the less you have to photoshop the better it will be. I find pictures with too much photoshopping can look entirely false if they're not done just right.

 

I'd just like to throw a thought out there... a good picture starts with good composition. I keep reading all of this tips about photo editing and lighting but what about composition?
I'm not very experienced with photo editing, and I will admit it is a very important and useful tool in BJD photography...
BUT...
I do have some useful tips for composition.
First is the Rule of Thirds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds)
The basic idea is if you divide up the picture into thirds both horizontally and vertically, you should place your point of focus on one of the intersections. (With BJDs and with people I like to make the point of focus the eye, or maybe the hand, but really, whatever works.) Some digital cameras have a display setting that shows the lines drawn on the screen.
Second is that the best pictures have a sense of circular motion in them-- they keep your eye in the frame. As a rule of thumb people always look at the face first, so you can use that as your starting point. As an example maybe you could have the doll to the left side of the frame, then have their arm extending to the right touching a branch or something going back towards the left. That one you really have to play with a little.

Anyway, regarding the specific pictures in this forum, neither of them are really that bad, but the extended arm in both might lead the eye off the page. Personally I like the second picture best because 1- it follows the rule of thirds more closely, and 2- i like how the one arm is reaching towards the camera.

Sorry that I don't have any advice on actual editing

 

I know this is an old thread, but there might be people still interested in what people are saying. Pictures with over-exposed faces and underexposed backgrounds are a common problem. Everybody has their own favorite solutions. This is what I frequently do:





The other pic I played with a bit differently. I cropped via the same basic criteria. Selected the face and adjusted curves...but there wasn't a lot of information left in the skin, so I played a different way. I adjusted the light balance to much cooler light, killing the yellow tone, then played up the pale skin/dark eyes look with some careful use of burning around the eyes and on the shadows of the hand.