Brighten a picture for editing

thad · Post by **thad** » Sun Jun 24, 2007 8:11 pm

I'd like to brighten this picture so I can do my editing, then return to the "unbrightened" pic. I want to cut out around an object, but because it's too dark in some spots (around the mic, his hair), I can't see what I'm doing. I brightened the picture +25, did my editing, then darkened it -25 (foolishly) thinking it would return to it's original state. Here's the before and after.

You can see all the detail in the shirt (shoulder area) has been lost after altering the brightness.

How can I change the brightness for editing purposes, and then return it to it's original brightness to save it? I'm using V7.

Thad

fortemac · Post by **fortemac** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 2:06 am

Before cutting something away make a copy of your original. That way if you blow the colors out, you can lay the 2nd copy over top and erase the part you don't need, like the backgrounds and any other part you want to keep from the cut away version. You might have to change the opacity of the 2nd to make it seamlessly flow into the lower layer. If you didn't change the size of this photo and still have a safe version of the original somewhere, you can still do this.

thad · Post by **thad** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 10:53 am

It looks like some of the problem has to do with my monitor/PC. I'm at work now and the original pic that looked dark at home looks fine here. I would have little problem editing the pic as I see it on this monitor.

fortemac, thanks for the reply but if I have to put the unedited pic back over top of the one I was working on, I have to redo all of my work again on a pic that I still can't see clearly.

I found the brightness settings for my video card that allows me to brighten the pic display without altering the actual pic. Now I can make my edits and see what I'm doing.

Thad

fortemac · Post by **fortemac** » Mon Jun 25, 2007 8:14 pm

You can send it to the back, erasing huge areas with the eraser tool at full power. Once you erase the background, move it to the front and erase the parts that are ok.

mikefoster · Post by **mikefoster** » Fri Jun 29, 2007 2:27 am

Try using the extract object feature of PI12 and it will allow you to work in zoom-in mode. This will make the extraction a lot easier.

Good luck...