Help with exposure correction

hockeytown74 · March 28, 2010

I have a picture that has some sunlight on the subject chin and mouth and was wondering if someone knows how to make it the same color/tone as the rest of his face. I lack in the photoshop skills, so any help would be much appreciated.

eur0ed · March 29, 2010

this kind of change is easiest when done with the raw file...if you have one, could you please link us to it?

hockeytown74 · March 29, 2010

eur0ed wrote:

this kind of change is easiest when done with the raw file...if you have one, could you please link us to it?

Here is the original.

hockeytown74 · March 29, 2010

hockeytown74 wrote:

Here is the original.

BinaryFx · March 29, 2010

Just to confirm, you only shot JPEG, no raw? By original, you mean a small sized version of the full size out of the camera JPEG? Exposure is best handled in-camera at capture, next best is shooting raw and using a raw processor to recover 1-2 stops of highlight detail over the base exposure. Image size also comes into play, in having enough pixels to work with. Colour does provide more opportunity than mono.

P.S. I think I prefer the shot in colour, or full black and white - not a mix (or if you must mix it up, I would try keeping the hero colour and the background mono)!

Regards,

Stephen Marsh

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/
http://prepression.blogspot.com/

hockeytown74 · March 29, 2010

BinaryFx wrote:

Just to confirm, you only shot JPEG, no raw? By original, you mean a small sized version of the full size out of the camera JPEG? Exposure is best handled in-camera at capture, next best is shooting raw and using a raw processor to recover 1-2 stops of highlight detail over the base exposure. Image size also comes into play, in having enough pixels to work with. Colour does provide more opportunity than mono.

P.S. I think I prefer the shot in colour, or full black and white - not a mix (or if you must mix it up, I would try keeping the hero colour and the background mono)!

Regards,

Stephen Marsh

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/
http://prepression.blogspot.com/

I only shoot in raw and then covert them to Jpegs in Lightroom. I know about exposure and suck at photoshop when it comes to dodging and burning and things like that. I can email someone the raw file if they could help. Thanks.

gecko0 · March 29, 2010

lightroom and photoshop both let you mask that specific area, then lower the exposure and brightness to better match the surrounding areas. you could also use the clone tool to help out a bit, but that might be tough to make it look natural.

i'll let others chime in on the step-by-steps for doing this.

BinaryFx · March 29, 2010

hockeytown74 wrote:

I only shoot in raw and then covert them to Jpegs in Lightroom. I know about exposure and suck at photoshop when it comes to dodging and burning and things like that. I can email someone the raw file if they could help. Thanks.

If you have raw then you should be able to recover data in the highlights (dependent on base exposure).

OPTION A:

One will have a ''normal" file rendered from LR as you intend the image to appear, rendered as a TIFF or PSD rather than JPEG.

Next one will also produce a second TIFF, this time using negative exposure values and or highlight recovery sliders - in order to bring in detail in the blown area on the face. This image will be darker than the first render.

Then both images are layered together in Photoshop, with the darker image over the top of the "normal" image. One then adds a layer mask (black) hiding the upper layer - then painting with gray tones or white the area that needs darkening is revealed.

This is only a general description, one may have to do other things to get the tones in harmony.

OPTION B:

Try to do it all in the raw processor - using negative exposure and or recovery, then using other options such as fill light, curves or whatnot to lighten the dark image.

Of course, there are other options to try as well!

Stephen Marsh

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/
http://prepression.blogspot.com/

hockeytown74 · March 29, 2010

BinaryFx wrote:

If you have raw then you should be able to recover data in the highlights (dependent on base exposure).

OPTION A:

One will have a ''normal" file rendered from LR as you intend the image to appear, rendered as a TIFF or PSD rather than JPEG.

Next one will also produce a second TIFF, this time using negative exposure values and or highlight recovery sliders - in order to bring in detail in the blown area on the face. This image will be darker than the first render.

Then both images are layered together in Photoshop, with the darker image over the top of the "normal" image. One then adds a layer mask (black) hiding the upper layer - then painting with gray tones or white the area that needs darkening is revealed.

This is only a general description, one may have to do other things to get the tones in harmony.

OPTION B:

Try to do it all in the raw processor - using negative exposure and or recovery, then using other options such as fill light, curves or whatnot to lighten the dark image.

Of course, there are other options to try as well!

Stephen Marsh

http://members.ozemail.com.au/~binaryfx/
http://prepression.blogspot.com/

Thanks for all the advice, I will try now to get this fixed. Thanks again.

arodney · March 29, 2010

If you have Lightroom 2 or the beta, you should be able to also lower the area that’s too light using a selective brush (using -exposure, recovery etc as discussed above).

Looking at the image, I’d be shocked if you don’t have plenty of highlight data in that area you wish to adjust in the raw data.

Help with exposure correction

Comments