Exercise: Managing Tone.

Optimizing the tones (Black, White and mid tones) are one of the most important steps to getting the image correct. These can be small adjustments but they will always be a necessary step. This should be the first thing you do after images have been logged and saved.
My monitor has been re-calibrated using a spyder 3, and therefore I am already to start this next set.
I need to set the black and white points, and starting with the top slider I will work my way down them, making sure I have the clipping warnings on. This is all performed in raw.

However having said about making these adjustments the first task I have to perform is to adjust the JPEG version. Below is the J Peg before any adjustments have been made. I chose this photograph because there is a selection of shadow, highlight and mid tone areas.

I have now opened the JPEG in photo shop elements, and set the black and white points.  I have also brightened the mid tones, making the overall look of the photograph much brighter. It is now possible to see the bottom third of the photograph. The only other thing I would possible do is to burn very slightly the white area, however I do not think it would be totally necessary.

Above is the final version of the JPEG with a 3% burn to the white wall, I do however appreciate this was not performed through the raw converter.

On to the raw file, I started by making sure the highlight clipping warnings were activated. I then took the exposure slider completely to the right so that the photograph was over exposed, I then slowly adjusted it until there were barely any warnings showing. A further adjustment was made to the mid tones using the contrast slider.

Above is the before and below is the after.

Unfortunately I am unable to make any other adjustments in raw and I would need to open the photograph to continue with further adjustments.

I also have light room, however this is not something I am really conversant with at the moment, but below is a trial attempt.