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I am an amateur photographer with my first client. As places to photograph go, interiors are one of the most difficult ones, in my opinion. My experience with interior photography is rather limited.

As you can see with the below images, they are rather ugly. This is due to the environment, but also perhaps my camera gear. I used a Canon 10-20mm on a 100D.

What would be the best post-processing adjustments to make to these photos to make them more usable? There is also the option of going back on location to re-take these photos and changing my camera settings. These are just a few photos of the place, but I have many more. Some are more usable than others. The composition could be better, but my task was to photograph the interior.

adjustments on the photo with the washing machines washing machines before/after of the photo with the washing machines ironing machine

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    \$\begingroup\$ Please can you define, "Rather Ugly"? What in your opinion makes these images ugly? And, secondly, can you explain what you are trying to achieve and what you are not able to achieve? What makes these images not usable? The question needs to be as objective as possible. many thanks \$\endgroup\$
    – Abdul N Quraishi
    Aug 1, 2018 at 10:14
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    \$\begingroup\$ Define also "usable". Usable for what purpose? \$\endgroup\$
    – user29608
    Aug 1, 2018 at 10:45
  • \$\begingroup\$ While i can not advise about "Fixing" things in post i can say that you will be much better served by learning to sculpt or design the light for your interior (and most all other ) photographs rather than trying to fix poor lighting in post. Sometimes it is not an option and you have to use available light, an acquired skill . You say you have the option to re-shoot so try a learning experiment. Go back and light the scene the way you want it, ( try it a few ways with and without the existing light, balance them ) shoot it, then do your best in post on the first images images and compare. \$\endgroup\$
    – Alaska Man
    Aug 1, 2018 at 18:30
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    \$\begingroup\$ Related to @Alaskaman's comment, if you can reshoot, for the image of the big machine (press?), consider making sure your camera is absolutely level, not looking up. It's apparent the camera was angled upwards because vertical lines are leaning inwards. If aiming the camera means you get too much foreground, you can crop the bottom. This will achieve the same thing that a perspective-control lens does, letting you get more of a vertical view while keeping vertical lines vertical. It will make the image appear more composed and intentional. \$\endgroup\$
    – scottbb ♦
    Aug 1, 2018 at 21:46
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    \$\begingroup\$ Don't know if you've checked the option to Remove Chromatic Aberration, but there seems to be a fair bit of CA in that first image. \$\endgroup\$
    – Conor Boyd
    Aug 1, 2018 at 22:10

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First impressions - it all looks clean. If you were trying to entice someone to work there that's a start; but it's all looks a bit dark & dingy.
It might not be if you're in the room, human eyes quickly adapt to artificial lighting & 'forget' it's not as bright as outside.

Without ever having seen the room, this is a best guess.

First thing I'd do is lift the overall lightness, without completely washing out those strip lights.
Also shift the darks but leave the blacks; lift the lights but not the whites - I've very slightly crushed this so there's no absolute 255, even though it looks very bright. I'd also shift the white balance towards blue, but not so blue as your 2nd image... I'm thinking that could give a whole new meaning to the word 'sterile'.

I came up with this, with just a quick tweak of white balance & levels
I don't think it's perfect by any means [I've very probably over-cooked it], but it looks like sunlight can reach the depths of the deepest dungeon. ;)

enter image description here

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