Fix underexposed gems

Brighten your underexposed photographs with Capture NX-D

When shooting in Manual mode you may end up capturing images that are underexposed, like the photograph featured in this spread.

Because we shot our pheasant using a telephoto lens there was a danger that the image would become blurred due to camera shake (which is exacerbated when the lens is fully zoomed in). By using a very fast shutter speed of 1/1000 sec we were able to capture a shot free of motion blur, but less light was able to enter the lens during this short exposure time. As a result we have an underexposed image. Fortunately it’s much easier to brighten up an underexposed shot than it is to reveal detail in a motion-blurred subject, so we prioritized using a fast shutter speed over a wide aperture.

By using Capture NX-D’s Histogram tool we can see whether a shot has a healthy spread of tonal detail and strong contrast. An underexposed subject, like our pheasant, will have a histogram graph that is bunched towards the shadows on the left. We can brighten up image and create a more balanced histogram that indicates a well-exposed shot, full of colour and detail.

In this walkthrough we’ll be using basic tone tweaking tools that will work on both Raw and JPEG files.