Intro and editing ?

[Midge]

Hi all,
I'm new to SLRs and photo editing but not to photographing cows, which I adore and have plenty of on my smallholding and in the neighbourhood.

I'm sure I read somewhere that one is able to 'set the blacks' in photoshop editing programme, but I cannot remember where I read that. I'm thinking this technique would help me out when editing photos of black Angus cattle. Depending on the light, sometimes their coats appear to have a greyish look to them in photos and I'd like to have them look really black.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers
Midge
NZ

[shellby]

You can also try under exposing a bit in camera

[Midge]

Hi Shelby,
Thanks for your quick reply :-)
I now realise that I didn't word my post very well. I should have said that I don't actually know how to 'set the blacks'. Are you able to advise me on this technique?

Many thanks in advance.
Midge
NZ

[Doug Nelson]

Open your image in Photoshop. Open levels or curves and click on the black eyedropper. Then click on anything in your image that should print as total, featureless black. That sets your black. You can also use the white dropper to set your whites, and the neutral dropper to set your neutrals.

But you'll quickly find this doesn't provide reliable results.

A more cumbersome, yet more reliable method is to open your image, then open levels. While holding down the Alt key, drag the far left arrow (under the blacks). Your image will turn all white, then as you slowly drag the arrow towards the right you'll see areas appear as black. Those will be the areas that print as featureless black.

If you're heading where I think you're heading, cow spots are not actually black (at least not as far as photos are concerned)

[Midge]

Many thanks for the instructions Doug :-) I look forward to trying this out.

Cheers
Midge
NZ