I am having trouble determining if I should trust the auto correct feature in Photoshop Elements 10. I normally shoot in Raw then convert to jpg in PSE. It always give me the option of auto correcting the photo before opening, but most of the time it looks over exposed to my untrained eye. Here is an example. Please let me know which photo is correct. Thanks!
See my post on the day. Auto, Program, and anything else Auto digital is imperfect and impersonal, and unhuman. Yeah, you guessed it, I don't like the programmed society of today.
Try shooting manual. Program mode sucks. With manual, you are always in control. Don't let technology take that away from you.
@copperheadglass Experimentation and perseverance is crucial. If you had a camera with film, how many chances do you get? "1". Make each shot count. Don't let the computer think for you.
While auto settings can be good, it all depends on the photo. Most of the time I prefer to make my own adjustments, it's quicker than doing an auto that I don't like and starting over. If your only two choices are the original and the auto then I'd take the original. But I would tweak it so that it was somewhere in the middle between them.
The correct exposure is what you like. Would you consider my last photo correctly exposed? I would think not, but I like it as it adds to the image. It should also be noted the exposure will change depending on what screen it is viewed.
For me I would ensure the face is exposed correctly and touch up the rest.
I think the auto-corrected one is much better! Photography is all about light, after all! The left pic looks a little drab to me. What you are looking for with over and under exposure is "Is there any information missing due to too much or too little light?" By information, I mean details. So examine your SOOC pic for any blanks spots that are totally blown out (white) or almost completely black with no detail at all. Whichever pic contains more detsil is usually the better exposed one!
Also, is your monitor colour-calibrated? If you're an amateur photographer and happy to stay there, you may not want to bother with this, but it's very important if you're getting into high quality printing or if you are just a detail-oriented person and you like to get the little details right. A photo on one monitor can look COMPLETELY different on a different computer, both in terms of colour and exposure...
I prefer the auto-corrected one, but I agree that doing the adjustments yourself is actually the best thing - humans see the photos, not computers; therefore humans should do the adjusting. xD
There is just a little bit more shadow on the SOOC one which I think could be a nice element if he had a darker expression. If they weren't side by side, I don't think I would have noticed - but I too have an untrained eye and rely only on my visual preference.
@tabbycat Great advice thanks. I am still learning but is seems like there is a larger learning curve for things like exposure and color correction than say composition.
There's a couple of interesting things in this thread. The face is always the thing. I like the face in the SOOC picture - the one in the auto picture looks a little light and it loses a bit of the detail and shadow/shaping. On the other hand, the overall feel of the SOOC one (as others have mentioned) is a bit dull. The auto one brightened it up. I like the shirt in the auto version. So I'd be likely to take the face from the SOOC version and the shirt from the auto version. The stones of the background are potentially a problem though - if you take the brighter version from the auto version and the face from the original, the tone and color could be too similar and the face could get lost. I'm not great with visualizing things, but I've had that very thing happen to some of my shots recently. That's one of the reasons why I like to work on layers, leaving an original layer alone. If I don't like something I've done I can start over on a new layer and then compare/delete the one(s) I don't like.
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Try shooting manual. Program mode sucks. With manual, you are always in control. Don't let technology take that away from you.
For me I would ensure the face is exposed correctly and touch up the rest.
Also, is your monitor colour-calibrated? If you're an amateur photographer and happy to stay there, you may not want to bother with this, but it's very important if you're getting into high quality printing or if you are just a detail-oriented person and you like to get the little details right. A photo on one monitor can look COMPLETELY different on a different computer, both in terms of colour and exposure...