I hadn’t planned on another photography post so soon — but as I was getting some photos ready for my personal blog, I came across a photo that was priceless to me. My son’s expression is exactly what I see in my head when I think of him, but the photo was BAD. I mean really, really bad. But it captured the essence of who he is and so I rescued it. And as I did it, I wrote this post so you can see that SOMETIMES YOU CAN save a really bad photo.
There is a difference between portraiture and getting some great pictures of your kids. As I have advanced (little by little) in my photography skills and knowledge I have a tendency to want every shot to be a “perfect” shot. I can spend too much time messing with my settings, getting the kids eyes faced the right direction, and making sure there are no boogies present that I miss the moment. I think most professional photographers will say that the one thing they struggle with after going pro is continuing to take photos of their own kids and/or the desire for every shot to be good enough to blow up on 30×40 gallery wrapped canvas. But there is definitely a time and place for “snapshots” that will fill our photo albums and scrapbook pages. Not every picture has to be perfect.
I am usually a proponent of “don’t fix the photo, take a better one.” I don’t advocate trying to salvage tons of really bad photos. The many hours spent editing bad photos could be put to better use in learning to take better photos. But you know what, we all have our days or moments and we get great photo that’s bad. And sometimes, you CAN save a bad photo.
The other day my sweet Levi was running around like a crazy boy. He saw my camera was out so he ran back and forth through the living room and out the front door while I pretended to “get” him with the camera. Ever changing lighting conditions and a fast little kid resulted in this awful photo.
The picture quality is horrid but the expression was priceless. It is just so “him” and I knew it was worth saving. And the end result was much better than anticipated. Here is what I did.
1. Duplicate layer and change the blending mode to the duplicated layer to SCREEN.
2. Duplicate the SCREEN layer until the lighting in the photo is more “normal”. In my example, I ended up duplicating six times for a total of 7 layers.
This was the result of the screened layers. The picture is definitely better and I could stop here, but my perfectionistic tendencies wouldn’t allow for it.
3. Add a brightness/constrast adjustment layer and adjust to taste. Due to the repetitive screening, some of the photo (especially his face) is washed out. I added a brightness/contrast adjustment layer to fix that.
At this point, I could stop. The photo is perfectly good for a photo album, my scrapbook, or for sending to grandmas. But since I like my photos to look I took a great picture straight out of the camera, I was bothered by something: The noise in the photo. Noise in photos is caused by two things:
1. A high ISO (used when there isn’t enough natural light)
2. When a picture is underexposed.
In my photo, the ISO was set to 400. On my camera that level of ISO does not usually present noise. However, it obvious that my photo was severely underexposed. And therefore, I got lots of noise. Here is a 100% crop of part of the photo and you can see what I am talking about.
So, how do you fix it? Photoshop has some native noise reduction filters but I much prefer a program called Noiseware. Noiseware is a Photoshop plugin or standalone program that greatly aids in noise reduction. There is even a free standalone version for people using Windows (scroll down to the bottom where it says Noiseware Community Edition Standalone). Sorry, but us Mac girls have to buy it. But it was totally worth it!
Just open your photo, go to Filter >Imagenomic and a noiseware window will pop up. I have not even attempted to play with the settings because the default ones that come up are so good.
Just click okay and your noise is gone! See the difference?
PHOTO BEFORE with noise
PHOTO after running NOISEWARE
See! Sometimes you CAN save a really bad photo. I will cherish this photo for a long time. His personality, his smile, his dimple, his blankie…it all just shines through…thanks to Photoshop.
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!!!!!
I use PSE, and your tutorial was pretty much the same for my program.. I have tons of shots of my son that my hubby takes that are too dark, and now I know how to salvage them!!
It will save me from complaining to him!! lol
Thanks so much for the tip about Noiseware. I used it for the first time yesterday, and it is a FABULOUS product! Thanks, too, for such a wonderful site . . . I get excited every time I see a new post from you in my Google Reader!
Thank you so much for all the great tips. I used some on a few of my Alaska Adventure photos that were too dark and I was amazed at the difference! Thank you – thank you – thank you!
Janet, I wonder if for one of your next photography classes you can show how to fix a picture that is completely washed out.
Thanks.
love how the picture turned out janet. isn’t screen the best photoshop tool for so-so pics?!
Wow! Thank you so much!
Awesome tip, Janet! I didn’t know there was a free version of Noiseware. All I could find was a trial but you can’t save any of the photos without them being watermarked or something (making them un-usable). I’d really like to get the plug-in. I wish it was the same price as the stand-alone. Oh well. Someday
This is great!!! Thanks for sharing this tip. I love your site. I was sad when you quit at SBG but now I’m so glad you have gone to this endeavor!! You are doing a great job!
Thank you! Great tut and I love Noiseware! Such a great picture of your son, I just love his dimples!
Thanks so much for sharing those tips and tricks. Now to go get myself a copy of Noiseware
What a wonderful job saving such a cute picture. I totally agree that sometimes we just have to salvage some of our snaps. I’ve definitely got to look into this software – what a bummer that us Mac gals have to pay–just not fair
.
Thanks for sharing!
Wow…. amazing! I didn’t realizing that adding more screen layers would change the results so dramatically! Thanks, Janet!
Wow! I’ve never seen a photo that dark be salvaged into such a fabulous photo! Way to go with your mad skills & thanks for sharing yet another incredible tip! I’ve said it before, but it surely doesn’t hurt to repeat: YOU HAVE BUILT A CAN’T MISS SITE! Congratulations!
Oh my gosh! I just tried Noiseware on some of my son’s basketball photos (where I had to set a high ISO to get decent shots). It is amazing!!! Thanks so much for the tip.
Argh-a week late. I could have fixed some of the photos I deleted last Saturday.
I really appreciate this info! Thanks so much!!!
Wow this is great info! I can’t wait to go and try it on some of my own bad pictures! Thanks for sharing this.
Very cute! Great salvage. Thanks for the tip. I guess sometimes there is a benefit to using Windows. Although, I still want a Mac
Wow. Amazing. Tnanks for this info!
I tried to download the noiseware program and my antivirus popped up a trojan alert in it. But, your picture came out great!
great picture. thanks for the great photo help.
That picture is priceless! You did a great job saving it!! Isn’t noiseware amazing?
Oh, and I could’ve typed the whole section about photographers forgetting to just take snapshots of their kids. I need to quit being so anal about how my photos look!
Thanks so much for the tips, I will play around with these ideas and go find noiseware.
Holey moley! That is amazing!! Thank you for sharing the things you know!
You are a saint–my pictures frequently have a lot of noise and this plug-in is perfect along with the fontfinder that you recommended. I LOVE your layouts and your site is my first websurfing every day – BIG TKS!!!!!
Leslie
P.S. Your children are absolutely adorable!
Awesome post! Thanks so much for the tips!
Fantastic!! Thanks for sharing!!!
Thanks for the tips!
Question though, does anyone use that free version? It says it leaves gridlines, then why would I use it?
oh WOW!! that’s pretty amazing – thanks for sharing!!
Chrissy
Hey Janet,
I am really enjoying the site. I loved the first set of Digi Files. Could you please tell me what program you use to scrap with?
Thanks
That picture is well worth the effort! I’ll have to look into Noiseware–I have little boys to photograph too
) Thanks, Janet!
I think the photo is perfect. Thanks for the hints. I use Noiseware on everything, especially all the football photos I shoot.