Of course. You scan the slide or negative and then post process the scan in your image editing program. If all you are doing is scanning, your images haven't been color corrected yet, they are still raw scans in need of processing.

Even taking negative film to the local drug store for processing and prints involves post processing. It's just that you don't see it happening because a machine is making the decisions. Now you can control the quality of your images by becomming the darkroom.

A quick suggestion. Levels will take the haze out of your scans by setting the black and white points. It's one of the first tools I use when I process my scans.

Thanks Larry! See the haze in this picture.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/digifilm/209636708/

My friend loves this one and she wants me to enter it in a contest, but I don't like the background. Would what you speak of fix that?

(Actually I personally don't think this picture is anywhere near good enough to enter, but she's had and sold her prints already in a gallery, so maybe she knows better.)

Is this the way it's supposed to look?

I used Levels to adjust the contrast and Curves to set black and white points, which corrected the colors.

Thank you.

That's definitely an improvement, but I still feel the photo was very underexposed (originally). I took that photo back in '93, so I don't recall too many details, except that I know I was using a high speed film (that I may have even pushed/stretched) because I knew the natural lighting was going to be dim (morning workouts in the world of horse racing begin at 4-5AM). Still, the photo came out underexposed because the way Keeneland is built, you are shooting into the sun. I'm no Photoshop guru, but I want to try to bring out/brighten up the horses body colour.

I can definitely see cropping some of the right side off as well, other wise I think the composition was good ... for a 'lucky' shot.

Here's a trick which I use all the time. In images with bright backgrounds, often a foreground subject will be underexposed.

I crop and size everything the way I want it, then I make a copy. I adjust the background to look good in one, and adjust the foreground to look good in the other. Then I paste the one balanced for foreground on top and use the eraser tool to remove the overexposed background - leaving the well-balanced background to show through.