Unfavorable lighting conditions often take away from the depiction of a great motive in a photo. Here are a few great tips to improve the situation with Ashampoo Photo Optimizer. We'll start with this photo.
1. Increase brightness
First, increase brightness by five levels to compensate for the increase in contrast in the next step. Increasing the contrast usually makes photos appear slightly darker. So, click "Color Correction" (1) and either move the slider or input "5" into the text field to increase brightness (2).
2. Increase contrast
Increasing the contrast make differences between bright and dark areas more pronounced. Use the slider or the text field to increase the contrast by 10 levels.
3. Increase color saturation
There aren't many examples for strong color saturation in nature. Still, subtle increases in saturation can significantly compensate for poor lighting conditions in photos. Poorly saturated colors tend to resemble pastel colors when brightened. In this example, we'll use a value of 200 but feel free to experiment with values between 130 and 200 that generally tend to yield good results.
Click "Apply" to permanently apply your settings before continuing to the next step (2).
4. Adaptive sharpening
This feature helps sharpen contours for slightly blurry images. Adaptive means the program will first analyze the image and adjust the strength of the effect to account for visual differences like dark or overexposed areas. You'll find this feature under "Manipulate" (1). We'll use a value of 20 in this example (2). Then, click "Apply" (3).
5. Noise reduction
Image noise is comprised of pixels that noticeable differ in color from adjacent pixels and is often caused by bad lighting conditions. The "Reduce noise" feature is also found under "Manipulate". It takes just a single click to remove noise from your photos with Photo Optimizer.
Finally, click "Save" to store your changes (3).
These five simple steps can work wonders and really make a noticeable difference in your photos without causing them to look artificial.
The fastest way to similarly great results is the automatic image optimization built into Photo Optimizer. Still, manual adjustment gives you greater creative freedom for a more individual touch in your photos.
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