What's wrong with this picture?

[christila]

Hi y'all,

I just bought the Olympus Evolt at Costco this weekend, and I am really a novice. My last digital camera is a 1.2 MP Oly Camedia deal; my main camera is a Canon Rebel 35 mm with the lens kit that is set to auto, I seriously have never made a manual adjustment to photos taken with it (and they were decent, by my standards, which is amateur, novice, taking photos of the kids.

Sooo, I was at Costco and couldn't resist the dual lens kit and the four thirds system - I picked up the kit and a 1 GB CF and have been playing around. I also bought the Complete Idiot's Guide to Photography Like a Pro and have been reading it slowly.

Anyway, was wondering if someone could tell me what is wrong with this picture. It is really glare-y; was wondering what adjustment would fix this. A UV filter? A lens hood? An adjustment of another kind? Would appreciate any guidance, here's the photo (I hope this posts it).



Okay, also, so far I love the the Evolt with one exception that everyone already knows about - low light shooting is a bit weak. Was wondering if it made sense to purchase the Zuiko 18-54 lens (in addition to the 18-45 lens that came in the kit) or if that is ridiculously redundant. Thanks for your help.

christine

[TheObiJuan]

The contrast is off because of lens flare. Also the image has a slight color cast. Adjusting the levels will fix this.

Excellent capture btw. The little girl's face is incredible!
A lens hood would help out a bunch, but if you do not have one, try not shooting into the sun, or using your hand and cupping the front of the lens to shield the sun.

[Rex914]

If you take a look at the histogram (levels) of the picture, I'd imagine that the middleish area will have a huge hump while the edges have very little. As Juan said, this is usually indicative of a lack of contrast. That should be relatively quick to fix.

[Bluedog]

Yep like the guys said. Use the one click auto contrast fix in MS Picture It 10, which I don't ever use.

[Savannah]

Way to go Bluedog! Looks good

[TheObiJuan]

I couldn't resist. This picture is so adorable I had to give it a lil' bit of effort.


This is what I did: levels, contrast masking, curves, high pass sharpening, and some color correction.

[christila]

Looks so much better, thanks so much.

So, does that mean that in addition to the Oly Master software that came with the kit that I should buy some additional software to fix this sort of thing? Also, is there some software that is recommended to make photo montages and other effects for playing? Again, I am just messing with pictures of the kids and stuff.

Thanks again, bluedog!
christine

[TheObiJuan]

Well I do not know the limitations of your Oly software but I use Adobe Photoshop. I was fortunate to get it for free from a friend. He upgraded to another version. I just got a 20D and it comes bundled with Photoshop Elements 2.0.
If you want, PM me and I can mail it to you for free. I have no use for it and the program could do you a lot of good. It is simplified version of Photoshop but still powerful.

[Bluedog]

Christine ... you want get a better deal on one of the best picture editing programs thanks to Juan ... good job Juan ... I'll take a copy of the other one ...