Tweaking a photo

canon400d

I have tried to lighten or brighten this photo but everything I have tried, I blow out the detail in the small lambs forehead. I am still learning and should I be using masks here or what. I would have thought I could have done this quite easily but even one nudge up in anything I do is blowing the detail out on the wee lamb's face. Here is the shot I am trying to improve it was taken Raw as always. Your help and guidance will be well and truly appreciated for any future similar shots.
Regards
Bob

canon400d

canon400d wrote:

I have tried to lighten or brighten this photo but everything I have tried, I blow out the detail in the small lambs forehead. I am still learning and should I be using masks here or what. I would have thought I could have done this quite easily but even one nudge up in anything I do is blowing the detail out on the wee lamb's face. Here is the shot I am trying to improve it was taken Raw as always. Your help and guidance will be well and truly appreciated for any future similar shots.
Regards
Bob
I have the photos the wrong way round but I am sure you can see what I mean.

pathfinder

This is precisely what layers and masks are for, Bob. You can make a global alteration and then limit its effect to only selected areas with a mask.

Or another way would be to make a copy of the background layer, do your curves to brighten the image, and then use the history brush to paint back in the detail in the kids head from the unchanged background layer.

TonyCooper

pathfinder wrote:

This is precisely what layers and masks are for, Bob. You can make a global alteration and then limit its effect to only selected areas with a mask.

Or another way would be to make a copy of the background layer, do your curves to brighten the image, and then use the history brush to paint back in the detail in the kids head from the unchanged background layer.

He's shooting RAW and using CS4. Without seeing the RAW image (or whatever format Canon uses) it's hard to say, but wouldn't dialing the Exposure back and increasing the Recovery before opening the file in PS help? Maybe save-as a copy with the exposure cranked back, and then save-as another copy with the correct exposure, stacking them, and then using a layer mask to cut out the blown-out lamb's head and expose the darker head work?

(I'm using Nikon and working with DNG files)

pathfinder

Excellent point that I overlooked, Tony.

He could even use an adjustment brush in RAW as well.

Photoshop always offers much more than just one way to skin a cat

canon400d

pathfinder wrote:

Excellent point that I overlooked, Tony.

He could even use an adjustment brush in RAW as well.

Photoshop always offers much more than just one way to skin a cat

Thanks Pathfinder andTony for your advice. I know exactly what you mean and thanks to Tony's past help I am now able to use masks. You are right about Photoshop offering many ways to achieve the same thing. I am more than happy with just the one way. I really appreciate your help.
Regards
Bob

jjbong

Masks are powerful tools, and they certainly have their place. But they also have their problems - you can end up with an image where it looks like one part was just pasted on the rest. So my personal bias is to use global moves wherever possible, and use layers/selections only when necessary.

This image calls out for a strong dose of Shadow/Highlight. You could use the Shadow/Highlight command, described in an excellent tutorial by rutt: http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/1777665.

I used a variant of this, which Dan Margulis calls "Shadow/Highlight on Steroids", and I described in a tutorial [thread]64165[/thread], coming up with this:



The thing is that you don't want do lighten the image overall. Instead, you want to lighten the dark areas. That's what Shadow/Highlight (and the overlay technique) is all about.