Tips / Contrast Remedies
Contrast Remedies Before
You Press the Shutter Release
Camera Settings
Set your digital SLR to save JPEG files with less contrast.
For example, before doing a portrait session in sunlight, switch
the camera from its default contrast setting to a low contrast setting.
You can also download custom curves for your camera.
Composition
1) Change your composition.
"Crop" before you take the photograph, rather than afterwards.
If you don't need the dark shadow or a bright area, reframe the
scene by moving your camera, zooming in, or changing your vantage
point.
You can also place something in front of the unneeded area, such
a tree branches.
2) Move the subject to a location with less contrast.
Why photograph on the sunny side of a street, for example, when
you can cross the street to the shady side?
Change the Lighting
1) Return when the light is more appropriate.
Overcast days have lower contrast than do sunny days.
For example, let's say you're photographing the Lincoln Memorial
in Washington.
You want the outside of the building to be well-exposed—and—you
want to be able to see the statue of Lincoln inside.
On a sunny day, that's impossible.
On a cloudy day, or at dusk, there is far less difference between
the light inside and outside the memorial.
2) Use fill-in flash.
3) Use a reflector, or the reflection
off a building or something else in the scene, to brighten the shadows.
4) Use a
Polarizing filter to reduce the brightness of the sky on a sunny
day.
5) Use a
graduated neutral density filter to reduce contrast in landscapes.
6) When taking pictures indoors use bounce flash.
Aim the flash at the ceiling, instead of directly at the subject.
If you're using bounce flash for a portrait, pull up the white
plastic reflector on your flash.
In the flash below, the reflector is the white line
This reflector brightens eyes that would otherwise be in shadow
because the light is coming from the ceiling.
If your flash doesn't have a reflector, you can purchase reflectors
such as those made by Lumiquest.
LumiQuest Ultrasoft
(LQ-873D)
LumiQuest Big Bounce
(LQ-881D)
7) Use the Night Portrait or Night Landscape icons when using
flash.
When you set your camera to these icons:
1) The flash will illuminate the scene near the camera.
2) The camera will also select a shutter speed so that the background
will also be brighter.
Movement of the camera, or more likely, movement by subjects
in the background, may be blurred due to the slow shutter speed.
Take Two Photographs
Landscape photographers in the 1800s took two exposures of a
scene—one with the best exposure for the sky—and the second with
the best exposure for the foreground.
They printed them on to a single photograph in the darkroom.
You can "develop" two versions of the same photograph.
The first version is optimized for the shadows, and the second,
for the highlights.
Then, the two versions are
combined.
Next, contrast remedies that you can do after you've pressed
the shutter release.
