Tom wrote:

which yielded the below disastrous results. The selected parts just turned solid gray.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tombrooklyn/4173460922/sizes/o/

Instead of 'Colors > Brightness', I would use 'Colors > Levels' and increase the grey
point (slide control in the middle). You could also copy & paste the selected areas into
a second layer & then try different layer effects, such as 'Screen'.

HTH,

Claus

Tom,

there are several ways to lighten up shadows, which to choose is difficult to say without the image. If you send me the image (RAW and your tiff) I would love to give them a try in my video podcast at http://meetthegimp.org.

Rolf

On Thu, Dec 10, 2009 at 4:10 AM, Tom wrote:

What went wrong with the below photo when I tried to increase the brightness
on the the darkest portions of the below photo? And what is a good way to selectively lighten the dark shadow areas of a photo?

What I did 1. Created a 16bit tiff from a Canon CR2 RAW 2. Opened the photo in GIMP.
3. Made a new layer
4. Selected a dark part with the color selection tool which selected all the
darkest parts of the photo as can be seen below. 5. Opened Colors/Brightness-Contrast 6. Increased the Brightness

which yielded the below disastrous results. The selected parts just turned solid gray.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/tombrooklyn/4173460922/sizes/o/

-- Tom (via www.gimpusers.com)