The Tunnel Road
SmartPhotography reader Sunny Sur ti from Surat, Gujarat, loves to travel and has sent us this picture. It is possible that the picture was shot through a car’s wind-shield. The road provides a ‘ leadin’ to the frame. While a good effort, there are two basic problems. a) The picture is overexposed b) The camera was not held level to the ground; you can see the tilt to the manmade structure. Let’s see how we can correct the defects. 1. Open the image in Photoshop. Select the Ruler tool and draw a line as shown in the smaller image. Click on Straighten Layer at the top of the image (only in Photoshop CS 6). Crop as necessary. [ In older versions of Photoshop (also in CS 6), you can go to Image > Image Rotation > Arbitrary. Rotate Canvas dialog box will open. Just click OK. Crop as necessary]. 2. Next, using Levels, adjust (darken) the middle tones. This action will further darken the areas that are already dark (something that we don’t want). If you are comfortable working with Masks, go ahead and paint with a soft-edged Brush on the dark areas (with White as the foreground colour) till you are satisfied with the tones. If you are not comfortable using Masks, you can use the Shadows part of the Shadows/Highlights tool to lighten the areas in question. 3. Next, select the Dodge tool, and set to about 10% Exposure. Select Highlights from the Options Bar. Paint on the white clouds to make them slightly lighter. I even selected the other end of the left tunnel and made it slightly lighter. 4. Select the wall between the two tunnels and tone it down, using Levels. 5. Sharpen the image and save it as a new file.