# How to color a photo
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-color-a-photo/1015961
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion
**Created:** [March 22, 2025, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-color-a-photo/1015961 "2025-03-22T20:23:23Z")
**Posts on this page:** 11
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@SuntanLotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuntanLotion)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2025, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-color-a-photo/1015961/1 "2025-03-22T20:23:23Z")
My church wants a pic for its directory. Sometimes I look good, I doubt I would tomorrow.
Pastor said theres a lot of glare, especially in background.
How would I fix this?
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### Author:  [@SuntanLotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuntanLotion)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2025, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-color-a-photo/1015961/2 "2025-03-22T20:51:18Z")
This is a photo on my phone.
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### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2025, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-color-a-photo/1015961/3 "2025-03-22T21:26:45Z")
Trying to make your subject line match your content, do you have a photo that is so overexposed the colors are washed out? Because otherwise you seem to be asking two different things.
Either way, this is a situation where if you don’t know the answer, then the answer is “pay/ask someone with skills in this area to fix it”. And the worse the problems, the more skills needed to fix it.
But the _really_ real solution to a bad new photo is to take a better newer photo.
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### Author:  [@SuntanLotion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SuntanLotion)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2025, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-color-a-photo/1015961/4 "2025-03-22T22:09:25Z")
Its a selfie, but theres light coming from the window. I know there are young people who know how to tweak pics to remove that.
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### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2025, 10:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-color-a-photo/1015961/5 "2025-03-22T22:23:41Z")
And the answer is, ask one of them to do it. Nobody is going to be able to teach you a skillset learned by extensive work at it in a text reply on a message board. Making bad photos look good isn’t one button that you press in an app.
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### Author:  [@Reply](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reply)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2025, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-color-a-photo/1015961/6 "2025-03-22T22:45:08Z")
You can try some of the AI services too. It might not give you the best quality output, but worth a shot if you don’t wanna pay a human to do it.
But Darren’s right, better to just get a photographer to take another photo for you. Or take another selfie where there isn’t so much glare.
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### Author:  [@MacDoc](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MacDoc)
#### Post date: [March 22, 2025, 10:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-color-a-photo/1015961/7 "2025-03-22T22:53:07Z")
PhotoLemur can do a remarkable job but silk purse and sow’s ear applies. Taking any photo backlit by sun in a window is tough. Photos taken at golden hour around 4-6pm always look good.
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### Author:  [@jnglmassiv](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jnglmassiv)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2025, 1:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-color-a-photo/1015961/8 "2025-03-23T01:57:16Z")
After struggling with selfie attempts, I had to ask a coworker to take some pics for my passport photo. The selfies were ok but not the same as a portrait.
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### Author:  [@Spiderman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spiderman)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2025, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-color-a-photo/1015961/9 "2025-03-23T02:11:13Z")
Even if you give that photo to a photoshop expert it’s easier to work with an underexposed photo than an overexposed one. If it’s too blown out, there’s nothing to pull back.
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### Author:  [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)
#### Post date: [March 23, 2025, 2:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-color-a-photo/1015961/10 "2025-03-23T02:51:08Z")
Yeah, if you just want a decent head shot of yourself, it’s almost always going to be easier to take another photo than to clean up one that was badly exposed. Get a friend to take photos of you. I find a really good method is to chat with a friend about something you both like while the friend snaps shot after shot. Then pick one that looks good and discard all the others. The “chatting about a pleasant topic” is a good way to get a photo that looks natural, not posed, and where you look relaxed and happy. If a formal posed photo is what you need, that’s even easier. Just find a place with decent lighting and a neutral background, and have a friend snap 3-5 to pick from.
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### Author:  [@pulykamell](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pulykamell)
#### Post date: [March 24, 2025, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-to-color-a-photo/1015961/11 "2025-03-24T12:08:07Z")
Yes. Take another photograph in better conditions (ie no backlighting). This is advice coming from one of our resident photographers. Apps and filters can’t fix everything (maybe a skilled Photoshop artist can), and it’s a waste of time trying to fix from a bad starting point when a much easier solution exists.