Increase exposure only on parts/area of a photo?

[Christian Dillner Hagen]

Hi,

 

I wonder how best to brighten up darker parts of a photo without effecting the rest of the photo?

In Lightroom I use the gradient filter to select the area I want to brighten and increase the exposure of that part/area.

It's not perfect either as it brightens all the parts from the selected area and below.

 

I have tried to use the paintbrush and gratient filter in overlay on Paint.net and it kind of works but the result is very noisy on very dark parts.

I have also tried to use the lasso selection to select the only part I want to increase brightness on but when the area is deselected there is har edge around the selection.

How do I avoid the hard edge and get a more smooth transition?

 

Is there a tools for changing exposure in Paint.net similar to what Photoshop and Lightroom has?

 

Is there a better way than what I have tried above wich will give the best result with minimal noise?

Edited August 8, 2021 by Christian Dillner Hagen

[AndrewDavid]

Hi @Christian Dillner Hagen

There are a few methods I can think of that might work. It is best you post the pic and show the areas you want changed. This would help to steer you in the right direction

[MJW]

The following idea may help.

 

Make a duplicate layer of the image.

Adjust the duplicate layer to conform to your idea of increased exposure.

(Using Brightness and Contrast, BoltBait's Combined Adjustments, Michael Vinther's Laplacian Pyramid Filter, etc.)

Make the adjusted layer the lower layer.

Select the Eraser Tool.

Set the Brush Width to something fairly large, and set a low Hardness.

Set the Opacity of the Primary Color below 255. The lower the Opacity, the less effect the Eraser will have. I suggest starting with something around 20.

Now erase the areas in the top (unadjusted) layer that you want to look more exposed. The more you erase, the more the adjusted layer will show through.

When done, flatten the image.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[ardneh]

This plugin may be helpful.

 

 

[Christian Dillner Hagen]

7 hours ago, MJW said:

The following idea may help.

 

Make a duplicate layer of the image.

Adjust the duplicate layer to conform to your idea of increased exposure.

(Using Brightness and Contrast, BoltBait's Combined Adjustments, Michael Vinther's Laplacian Pyramid Filter, etc.)

Make the adjusted layer the lower layer.

Select the Eraser Tool.

Set the Brush Width to something fairly large, and set a low Hardness.

Set the Opacity of the Primary Color below 255. The lower the Opacity, the less effect the Eraser will have. I suggest starting with something around 20.

Now erase the areas in the top (unadjusted) layer that you want to look more exposed. The more you erase, the more the adjusted layer will show through.

When done, flatten the image.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Thank you very much. This worked very well.

 

I also tried the Laplacian Pyramid Filter by it self and setting the Tone Mapping below 1 (to compress dynamic range) also worked very well.

 

Thanks.

[Christian Dillner Hagen]

By the way is there a way to not get sharp edges when using the rectangular or lasso selections and only brightening that area?

 

Also I wonder where do I edit exposure in Paint.net?

In lightroom it's called exposure. Is it called something else in Paint.net?

[Christian Dillner Hagen]

Here are a couple of photos Im trying to brighten up the dark areas on.

On the ocean image I only want to brighten and expose the bottom half to show the details in the grass.

 

[Christian Dillner Hagen]

On this one I only want to brighten/expose the stand just under the green/orange/yellow lights.

[AndrewDavid]

Hi @Christian Dillner Hagen

I managed to create this attempt from your post

 

I've included the history to show you the steps as well as the layer structure.
Duplicate layer 
GMic - Inkwash (Plugin you may not have)
brightness contrast +47
Layer blend mode screen
duplicate background layer / Place on top
Blend mode darken / opacity 80
Flatten to PNG
I think its as close as you're going to get without adding any color
Let us know what you think

[Christian Dillner Hagen]

Thank you. I think I managed to brighten only the ground and grass without affecting the ocean and sky to much by

using the eraser on all but the grass and ground on one layer and adjusting the brightness and contrast.

[Christian Dillner Hagen]

And here I went overboard with the brush tool only colorizing the grass and ground with brush set to opacity, forground color to white and background color to light gray and strength to zero. All in the same layer.

Edited August 9, 2021 by Christian Dillner Hagen