Digital Photography For Dummies, 8th Edition

Chapter 11

Ten Fixes for Common Photo Flaws

IN THIS CHAPTER

Adjusting under- or overexposed photos

Achieving sharper focus

Removing or diminishing visual distractions

Dealing with lens distortion and tilting horizon lines

Trimming away extra background material

Coping with image noise

Eliminating unwanted color tints

Checking your photos for halos

When you return from a photo outing, don't be discouraged if you like only a handful of images out of the dozens of frames you shot. First, understand that a 100 percent good-to-garbage ratio is unrealistic, especially when you're photographing kids, wildlife, or other unpredictable subjects. Second, most photo-editing programs offer tools you can use to eliminate certain photo flaws — your camera may even have some of those tools built in. This chapter offers help on both counts, providing tips to help you avoid the most common picture problems and explaining how to apply a few basic retouching tools to cover up mistakes after the fact.

Correcting Exposure Problems

When you photograph a subject that's set against a very bright background, you may get a result similar to the one shown on the left in Figure 11-1, where the background looks fine but the subject is underexposed. On the flip side, if the background is much darker than the subject, the subject may be overexposed.

FIGURE 11-1: For a brighter picture, raise the Exposure ...