Help darkening an overexposed digital image

[dennis osipiak]

I've fixed many underexposed digital images with 3-4 different

techniques that work marvelously, but need advice on an overexposed

images. I've tried the basic stuff..playing a little with auto levels,

contrast and auto color..also played a little with curves and the

basic brightness contrast adjustment. I admit my experience in these

areas of photoshop puts me at the novice level but some simple

suggstions given to me to rescue underexposed images with the "screen

blend" etc worked wonders with 1-2 clicks.

Anything someone could suggest with photoshop 8.0 (CS)? If you offer

any ideas be specific with the steps..as I said I'm a novice at

photoshop so far.

Thanks Dennis

PS--Just for wider viewing I'm going to post this on the digital

camera forum also..hope that doesn't bother anyone. So far I've

noticed a very friendly community without the usual sarcasm of some

other boards..I appreciate that!<div></div>

[mike_elek]

This is nearly the same as the difficulites of shooting with transparency film. If the information isn't in the original, there isn't much you can do.

[mike_spivey]

Lightening a dark photo is easier than darkening a blown out one. There just isn't enough information. I've had better luck with shots taken in RAW and changing the exposure in conversion. But that's why most intermediate photographers try to err on the side of underexposed (professionals get it spot on, I guess).

[michaelging]

Denis ,someone might have a good Idea on how to fix it .I when I shoot in RAW, I can sometime find a little detail in the highlights, but I have found even with Photoshop CS, that blown highlighs are not fixable. I look forward to hearing from someone who might know different.If I error,I always go to underexposure ,as you say that is pretty easy to fix. Good Luck

[stephen_lutz]

You might try this:

 

In PS CS, with the image open, hit ctrl-alt ~. This should create a selection mask of the highlights. Hit ctrl J to duplicate it as a layer, then open the layers palette. With the highlight layer selected change the blend to multiply. The highlights should darken.

 

Obviously, blown detail can't be recovered, but this might help some.

[antonrussell]

Another trick is to duplicate the image as a new layer. Desaturate the top layer and apply a large radius gaussian blur (radius about 100 maybe). Set the top layer's mode to multiply. Then play with levels, curves etc on the bottom layer while the top layer still sits there in multiply mode. Also play with the opacity of that top layer. If you get something approaching a decent image flatten it and apply final tweaks. This can appear to restore detail to highlights because the gaussian blur creates a light-dark gradation about the edges of a blown-out section, but you might have to spend a long time tweaking the method to get good results for a specific photo.

[tommyinca]

Here is my attempt. There is too much missing detail. Others who is better at this could do better. I use Picture Window Pro to do this. Photoshop step is simular.

 

a. Create a high contrast copy

b. Blend the original copy with the high contrast copy.

c. Create a mask to cover up area that has washed out highlight

d. Increase saturation on the unmasked area to recover color

e. Touch up picture with cloneing<div></div>

[antonrussell]

And after 10 minutes: well, not great results just yet - the girl on the right maybe can't be retrieved!

[kevin_krumwiede2]

Overexposed digital images are hard to recover. Areas of maximum exposure (value 255) contain no detail and cannot be recovered. These are the blinking areas in the attached photo. Sorry, but there's not much that can be done with this one...

[alexdi]

Selectively mask the blown areas and use a Levels correction layer to drag the output white point down to about 240. Blur the mask a bit. Flatten, and then use the clone stamp set to 'color' to fill in skintones.

 

The girl on the right is beyond hope, but everyone else corrects nicely.

 

DI