An easy way to salvage underexposed digicam photos

[vilva]

I accidentally bumped into an easy way of getting quite reasonable B&W photos out of even very underexposed digicam shots. I was post-processing some of the photos I had taken in the very dimly lit Uspensky Cathedral and while working in LAB space I noticed that the L layer presented an almost normally exposed B&W image. Here is the tell-tale shot, first in colour:



then the L layer:



Having noticed this, I dug up some old photos taken with a Sony DSC-F505 and started experimenting. Here is a representative image pair, a photo taken without flash in a candle-lit restaurant:



The original seems almost hopeless, but the B&W version is quite OK for many purposes and , IMHO, much preferable to a photo taken with flash:



The procedure is very easy: 1) convert into LAB space and 2) delete the A and B layers leaving just the L layer. That's it unless you want to adjust the black level or contrast, but that isn't usually necessary. It couldn't be much easier or faster.

More digicam examples at http://galactinus.net/vilva/retro/lab_bw.html

Veijo

[LucisPictor]

Yes, the LAB-mode is really useful (also for sharpening problematic pictures).
Noise is clearly visible, but it resembles the classical film grain which kind of suits a b&w shot well.

Thanks for posting.
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[bob955i]

Looks like I really should upgrade from PSE2.....

Thanks for the heads up.

I've converted problematic colour images to B&W in the past with good results but obviously not using this method as PSE2 doesn't have LAB mode.

[vilva]

[vilva]

[bob955i]

[patrickh]

Try gimpshop:

http://plasticbugs.com/?page_id=294
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