is the dress too bright?

[shaun_carter]

here's a photo from today's wedding that i'm strugging with whether or not to

tone down the highlights in the dress. i'd like a few opinions on whether the

dress is blown out or not. would you leave as is or fix it? thanks...<div></div>

[vlad khavin]

Personally, I would bring the highlights down a bit. I wouldn't call it blown, but... you can't really see detail in the front of the dress.

[vlad khavin]

Addendum: I wouldn't overdo the highlight recovery on it though. Just enough to show a little more detail in the front of the dress.

[ronald_moravec1]

Tone it down slightly.

 

I think the whole picture is 1/3 stop too bright. Try that fix before any localised fixed.

 

Maybe you could keep the skin tones the same. I might merge two layers to hold the skin. Another possibility is a luminosity mask, and then invert it so yu can tone down the light areas and keep the skin.

[ronald_moravec1]

Don`t invert the luminosity mask. Apply to a dup layer, then make a curves adjustment layer pulling the curve to lower right. Flatten layers.<div></div>

[david_schilling___chicago_]

The front of the dress and the outside edge of the tux are blown...here's a quick retouch with PS to bring some details to the dress and tux along with a subtle viginette.<div></div>

[ronald_moravec1]

Then a little burn around the edges<div></div>

[shaun_carter]

I agree, it looks better with some work on the highlights. Nice fix Ron and Dave. Thanks!

[ben_rubinstein___mancheste1664880652]

If you are using CS3 or LR then the highlight recovery tool was practically made for this. I can't understand how I managed without it, changed the way I expose, I don't have to be so protective of the whites anymore, I can expose for the faces and pull the whites back slightly in the RAW converter for loads of DR throughout the image without making it look flat.