Recovering pics from bad light

coldclimb

As per Steve's suggestion in the sports forum, I'm posting one of my slacklining shots that I wasn't able to recover on the computer as well as the others. Any tips on getting this to look good, and how to prevent the washing out in the first place when shooting under bright sunlight? This one obviously metered on the shadows in the background, so I guess I know I did that part wrong, but anything else you can point out or show me how to fix would be awesome.:):

rainforest1155

I did a 2mins work on the picture. Others will come up with different solutions.

Using PS6 I applied a highlight-mask by going to the channel-tab, holding ctrl and double clicking on the RGB-channel. Now PS has selected all light parts of the picture. Now I created an adjustment levels-layer in the level-tab. There I pulled the left slider to the right until I was at the border of the histogram.

It still needs some tweaking, but looks a lot better to me. I can't really tell the colors here on my tiny laptop, but that should give you an idea to work with.

cletus

rainforest1155 wrote:

I did a 2mins work on the picture. Others will come up with different solutions.

Using PS6 I applied a highlight-mask by going to the channel-tab, holding ctrl and double clicking on the RGB-channel. Now PS has selected all light parts of the picture. Now I created an adjustment levels-layer in the level-tab. There I pulled the left slider to the right until I was at the border of the histogram.

Nice work

rainforest1155

cletus wrote:

Nice work

Thanks cletus! Means a lot to me hearing this from one of the PS-gurus from here.
I think I got this trick a while ago from here. What about collecting all these hints in a sticky thread?! Especially all these hidden commands with the ctrl-key, I guess there are more of them in PS.

coldclimb

Hey, that's pretty good. My skills are pretty much limited to the usual edits of brightness/contrast, etc. and cut-and-paste jobs. It's a bit tough to branch out when I don't know what I'm doing. Thanks for the tip, I'll have to mess with it some myself now.

Lucky Hack

Here's a crack at it,
1. I made a copy of the image and used the multipy layer mode
2. then using levels I clipped the black out of the multipying layer so that the shadows didn't get too dark.
3. Made a copy of the Multiplying layer and color corrected for the increased saturation.
4. Used the desaturate brush for the flare comming off the rope.
5. Then I saturated the bushes to make the subject pop a little more.

Scarry shot, is there water below? Hope this was helpful...

-Ian

ps. the uncompressed version of this looks a little richer, but I had to make it small enough to post.:cry

cletus

rainforest1155 wrote:

Thanks cletus! Means a lot to me hearing this from one of the PS-gurus from here.

Not a guru... just another dgrinner with an interest in Photoshop.

rainforest1155 wrote:

I think I got this trick a while ago from here. What about collecting all these hints in a sticky thread?! Especially all these hidden commands with the ctrl-key, I guess there are more of them in PS.

If you haven't already, be sure to check out Waxy's Hall of Wisdom. We've tried to collect the best tips and advice from all of the dgrin forums and place them in the hall.

If you want shortcut's take a look at DD Assignment #8 .

wxwax

Coldclimb, as you've discovered, this shot is almost impossible to fix. As i've learned and many have said, an overexposed shot is worse than an underexposed shot.

When you overexpose something, you lose all the detail. It's gone, never to be recovered. :cry So unless you shot this in RAW, and can adjust the exposure, yer sunk, I'm afraid. Frankly, it looks too blown out to save in RAW.

When you're shooting in the middle of the day, you have to protect against overexposure at all costs, because the sun is so harsh and bright. If you're on full auto, at least point the camera at something that's sunlit and basically as far away as your subject, and half-depress the trigger, then recompose. It would be even better to shoot in Manual, and control the exposure yourself.

Sorry, man, bummer.

Lucky Hack

wxwax wrote:

Coldclimb, as you've discovered, this shot is almost impossible to fix. As i've learned and many have said, an overexposed shot is worse than an underexposed shot.

When you overexpose something, you lose all the detail. It's gone, never to be recovered. :cry So unless you shot this in RAW, and can adjust the exposure, yer sunk, I'm afraid. Frankly, it looks too blown out to save in RAW.

When you're shooting in the middle of the day, you have to protect against overexposure at all costs, because the sun is so harsh and bright. If you're on full auto, at least point the camera at something that's sunlit and basically as far away as your subject, and half-depress the trigger, then recompose. It would be even better to shoot in Manual, and control the exposure yourself.

Sorry, man, bummer.

I agree, with you, you'll never get back what was never there, and I'm no Guru, but I thought I did alright.
I know, I know, I'm fishing (shamelessly I might add)

Hoping this message finds you well -Ian

coldclimb

Lucky Hack wrote:

I agree, with you, you'll never get back what was never there, and I'm no Guru, but I thought I did alright.
I know, I know, I'm fishing (shamelessly I might add)

Hoping this message finds you well -Ian

Yeah, thanks guys. I know the highlights are shot, but you did give me some helpful tips on recovering good color and contrast from blown images. Thanks a ton!