how do you make pictures vibrant looking

[slipper]

how do you touch up pictures to make it look a lot more vibrant. i plan on using this for pictures of people and objects such as cars

 

[tech4all]

how do you touch up pictures to make it look a lot more vibrant. i plan on using this for pictures of people and objects such as cars

If you have Photoshop you can increase the saturation: Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation (or Command + U). Then drag the saturation bar to the right to increase the color saturation. You can also play with the curves to adjust the contrast as well. This is just one of many ways to do this

 

[virividox]

you could also adjust the different levels in photoshop

curves are a really great way to go if you know how to work it

google it

 

[HiRez]

curves are a really great way to go if you know how to work it

Also, if you do use Photoshop for these types of operations, first change the Mode to 16-bit-per-channel. Then do your modifications and finally change the Mode back to 8bpp RGB when you're done. This gives PS a lot finer resolution (color "depth" resolution) to work with while performing these operations, and will result in less color banding artifacts in your final image. If you don't have PS, the built-in tools in iPhoto do a decent job of enhancing photos.

 

[Blue Velvet]

As well as improving midtone brightness, contrast & saturation...

When you're happy with your result a little sharpening with Unsharp Mask can give a bit of snap. Don't overdo it, though...

 

[RubberChicken]

Also, if you do use Photoshop for these types of operations, first change the Mode to 16-bit-per-channel. Then do your modifications and finally change the Mode back to 8bpp RGB when you're done. This gives PS a lot finer resolution (color "depth" resolution) to work with while performing these operations, and will result in less color banding artifacts in your final image. If you don't have PS, the built-in tools in iPhoto do a decent job of enhancing photos.

If you change an 8 bit image to 16 bit I don't think this will create any real aditional info to work with. Imagine it in these simple terms. 8bit RGB allows 256 shades (2 to the power of 8) each in Red Green and Blue channel. 16 bit allows 65536 per channel. If you create a gradation from black to white 65536 pixels wide in 8 bit greyscale, you end up with 256 bands of grey each 256 pixels wide (We'll ignore that Photoshop noises it up). If I'm thinking right, when you did the same thing in 16 bit greyscale you would see 65536 bands - each band would be 1 pixel wide. If you take the 8 bit image and change it to 16 bit it will not look any different because that process does not recreate the gradation in the larger bit depth. The image has to be created or captured in the larger bit depth initially.

If you begin with a 16 bit image, then yes there is a lot more headroom to make adjustments. And so large contrast or gamma changes are less affected by banding.