Dark image

Took the attached image from within a bar, towards the street. What should I have done to make the image lighter, anyone, please...

[IMG]http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r175/hammie_friend/KH__5781.jpg[/IMG]

In camera you should have taken a exposure reading from within the bar. However, if you do that the street will be completely washed out.
This looks like a perfect example for HDR. If you shot RAW then increase exposure +1 +2 etc and combine the files in HDR.

Good luck

Use a flashgun (the pop-up flash won't be powerful enough), or alternatively a longer exposure if you don't mind blowing the street view.

With an automatic or semi-auto exposure mode, set the camera's metering mode to centre-weighted and point it at a part of the interior (without the street being visible in the frame) and press the AE-L button, then recompose. Or alternatively add some +EV Compensation.

A high ISO setting will be required if not using flash or tripod.

You can also adjust the brightness of the dark areas to some extent on your computer afterwards. There is more scope to do this with a RAW source.

I took a similar picture in the Southern Cross Cafe Edinburgh, I metered of the window making everything else dark, then in photoshop created a brightness mask on the fore ground, then adjusted until the foreground was how I wanted.

Thanks guys... have already looked up the solution on an interior photography website, where all of the above was suggested. I do have RAW files for all of the images, so bit of experimentation, I guess?

I also acquired a METZ flashgun, so perhaps another trip with all the extra gear might also be the solution. Also an opportunity to take some more pics. Fortunately, the venue is only 10 minutes walk from my home..

Your image is quite small but it looks pretty good to me?! The bar was that dark in real life, right?

I bet it didn't appear THAT dark in real life due to the way the human eye and brain deals with low light and high dynamic range better than any camera can.

The bright light from the windows has persuaded the camera meter that the area as a whole is brighter than it is, so it has cut down the exposure accordingly. Hence the under-exposure of the foreground.

I suspect the inside was your subject, not what was outside the windows, so to render it correctly you could either recompose to ensure that window light was not a major influenece on the metering, or you could apply +1 or even +2 stops of exposure compensation, which will adjust the meter reading.

The image as you have it might have enough detail in the dark areas to retrieve using Photoshop, but quality may suffer.

The possibility of adding a bit of flash exposure has already been mentioned.

I have used the RAW file, altered the sensitivity and rotated it, so that it was vertical. It was and is like as is...
thanks for all the comments..

[IMG]http://i144.photobucket.com/albums/r175/hammie_friend/KH__5781_side.jpg[/IMG]