I have a photo editing question.

[Jim Jensen]

This spring a friend and I went out to Yellow Stone Park. We were fortunate enough to come a cross a Grizzly Bear. We were not brave enough or maybe not dumb enough to exit our vehicle to take a picture. There were 100+ people standing outside of there vehicles, some with toddlers looking at this bear that was about fifty yards away. I have never been to Yellow Stone before, maybe the wildlife is tame. I wasn’t willing to risk it. As you can see my picture is not a very good picture. My question is could someone skilled in Photoshop or other software make this a better picture?

[finnbay]

Photoshop could improve this tremendously. I'm getting ready to go to bed and won't be able to show you, but I bet some others could brighten up the bear considerably.

For future reference, what happened here is that your camera exposed for the snow, which means everything else is going to be underexposed. If you have the capability on your camera, you need to overexpose this shot to get the bear correct.

[Jim Jensen]

Thank you very much.

[MN Shutterbug]

First of all, there is no such thing as a tame wild animal. People just do not use their heads in places like this, which can spell trouble for them and/or the wildlife.

Secondly, I just did a quick opening of the shadows and a bit of levels and sharpening. That's a pretty contrasty photo, which makes it tough to keep detail in the shadows and highlights. It's getting too late to play with it too much.

[Jim Jensen]

That looks a lot better. At least I can tell there is a bear in the picture.

[dockothebay]

Yellowstone is a magical place isn't it? (Despite stupid people)

here's my quick shot at your shot - a little work with the shadows/highlights feature in PS

[dockothebay]

oops - sorry Mike - I didn't see your post too - guess we're thinking along the same lines.

[Steve Foss]

I looked it over in Photoshop, and Jackie has pulled out the shadows about as much as is possible without making them look really harsh and noisy. As finnbay said, when the meter exposes for the highlights (which is very common in a wide field of snow), anything darker in the image will be significantly underexposed, and there are limits to how far back in can be brought.

Good news is, this image does not need shadows opened up all the way to make it better. The small amount of work done by these fine folks in post processing is enough.

[Jim Jensen]

With all of your tips I took a shot at it myself and now I can see the Bear. Thanks again.

[mmeyer]

Jim, you did a fine job on your rework. Cropping it really made a difference.

[dockothebay]

Cropping sure did make a difference - isn't digital a kick? Sure saves a lot of pictures doesn't it? This is a nice shot.