Digital Darkroom Techniques

Basic Cropping, Level Enhancement

Even more than the traditional darkroom, digital editing software such as Photoshop gives you the opportunity to improve images you’ve already shot. You can’t salvage badly shot photos, but you can often improve good ones.

This photo was taken at a dramatic moment – a boat was heading out into a gale on Georgian Bay to search for another boater in trouble. It should have been an exciting shot, but was disappointing – bland colour and less dramatic than the real event. A few minutes in Photoshop made the image more vivid and focussed. Below are the before & after images and what was done:

Cropping: Used cropping tool to: remove colourful but distracting branches in the foreground zoom in on the focal point of the shot (the boat) leave lots of sky for a sense of space and dominance Horizon line no longer in centre Bow of boat will end up in better “rule-of-thirds” position Level Enhancement (Click here to Learn How) Auto-levels too stark & high contrast Used Enhance, Brightness & Contrast, Levels Left hand and Centre Input sliders moved right to darken, adding contrast, definition to clouds, waves, boat Mood is darker but more vivid Didn’t lighten as this washed out the whites

The final image is more vivid, focussed and powerful after cropping and level adjustments.