Having seen David Lawson's recent photograph in another part of the board, I very presumptuously thought I would offer a quick and dirty demonstration of some simple enhancements that can be made, very easily, to brighten up pics using Microsoft''s Photo Editor (or any other).
I hope you don't mind David.
David's Original
Autobalance using Microsoft Photo Editor
Photo Editor's Autobalance is as quick and easy as it comes, and sometimes does a good job but tends to exaggerate the contrast without doing anything at all for the mid-tones. It has left the wheel areas still rather dark and indistict
Manual Balance using Microsoft Photo Editor
Here, I manually raised the Gamma Level by a coupe of notches to either 1.33 or 1.47 (can't remember exactly now!) and then increased contrast a little as well. Autobalance never touches the Gamma/Midtones yet raising it by two to three notches is the best method I know of swiftly bringing a 'murky' picture to life.
Now we can see the wheels much better.
I realise I may not have the colour of the car exactly right as unfortunately I don't have the original to hand!
I could do a better job of detail work using Adobe Photo Shop, but that takes quite a while, where this took less than a minute per picture.
I hope it encourages people to experiment a little.
I hope you don't mind David.

David's Original

Autobalance using Microsoft Photo Editor

Photo Editor's Autobalance is as quick and easy as it comes, and sometimes does a good job but tends to exaggerate the contrast without doing anything at all for the mid-tones. It has left the wheel areas still rather dark and indistict
Manual Balance using Microsoft Photo Editor

Here, I manually raised the Gamma Level by a coupe of notches to either 1.33 or 1.47 (can't remember exactly now!) and then increased contrast a little as well. Autobalance never touches the Gamma/Midtones yet raising it by two to three notches is the best method I know of swiftly bringing a 'murky' picture to life.
Now we can see the wheels much better.
I realise I may not have the colour of the car exactly right as unfortunately I don't have the original to hand!
I could do a better job of detail work using Adobe Photo Shop, but that takes quite a while, where this took less than a minute per picture.
I hope it encourages people to experiment a little.
