Family Picture

So when we were in Hawaii with the Moe's, we had some great family pictures taken by the beach. We really liked the way one turned out, but because of the hot Hawaii sun, we all had to be in the shade and the sunny background was washed out a bit.




My mother in law ask me to tweak the photo a bit and see if we could bring out some better colors and such. So I set to work, loaded the photo in RAW format (go to open as ... and one of the top options is RAW) so that I could easily tweak with the exposure. Because of the difference between the foreground and background, I loaded the photo 3 times - once for the people and front, once for the sky, and once for the trees. I had to bring up the exposure and bring out the whites to get the people to look a little more like we were in the sun; then I had to bring down the exposure and bring out the blue to make the sky look like it really did in Hawaii; and finally I just had to tweak it a little to make sure the trees retained their color as well. Using masks and the pen tool I carefully staggered the layers, and I was pretty happy with the end result.



We're in the shade still, but you can see us. The sky has the blue it needs, and overall I think this is a way better looking picture. Amazing what a little exposure manipulation and combination can do.

(to see the real difference between the people and sky in the photos, you have to click on them and see them full size) :)