manipulating a high contrast image

[george_doumani]

<p>This was a photo taken recently from my hotel room in the ever polluted paradise of Bangkok.</p>

<p>I have been playing with it for a while in CS3 in an attempt to bring out a little detail in the highlights without completely loosing the little shadow detail I have in the hotel room. I know the polluted sky contains little detail but the exposure latitude of my digital camera cannot cope with the 6 - 7 stop difference from indoor to outdoor. In retrospect I know i should have taken 2 shots, 1 exposure for the highlights and the 2nd for the shadows but I didn't have a tripod with me.</p>

<p>I have tried looking through my RGB channels to find the channel of greatest contrast between indoors and outdoors, copying it, working on a curve from it then pasting it over the top of the background layer as a mask and further adjusting curves from there within the layers. Not really getting any where though. Any suggestions would be much appreciated?</p>

<p>thanks in advance<br>

George</p>

<p> </p><div></div>

[Ed_Ingold]

<p>Use Photoshop to mask the area of the bright window, invert the mask to exclude that area from actions and apply a slight feathering (feather to taste). You can draw a rectangular mask and use the Transform tools to change its shape to fit the window. Then use one of the imaging tools to lighten the foreground - Curves or the Light & Shadow Tool are probably the best.</p>

<p>If you do this in an adjustment layer, the mask and changes can be edited indefinitely. If you save the PSD or TIFF with layers, you can edit the results the next time(s) you open the file.</p>

[howard_m]

<p>there is no detail in that sky. according to CS3, the whole section of sky is showing 251-255 on all channels (98-100 Lab). Nothing to recover there.<br>

you could dupe layers and set blend to multiply/darken but it still isn't going to give you detail from which there was none (and then use a mask to mask out the interior of the hotel room which will be totally black after that maneuver).</p>

[Ed_Ingold]

<p>Your question was about manipulation, but Photoshop is no substitute for planning. The simplest way to balance the window with the room is to use a flash. As an alternative, the trick to using window light for effect is to NOT include the window in the shot. As you remarked, you can also take two or more shots (using a tripod) and combine them using HDR Merge (??) or masking and compositing (the professional approach).</p>

[howard_m]

<p>couple of multiply layers, a screen layer for indoors (opacity adjusted on layers) and 10 second mask between the two.</p>

[george_doumani]

<p>thanks everyone for all of the input</p>

<p>photoshop is no substitute for planning i know but i simply hate traveling with a large kit (flash and or tripod)</p>

<p>@howard - what do u mean by "10 second mask between the two"</p>

 

[howard_m]

<p>I painted a mask in the window for the screen layer and I did it poorly ;) in only 10 seconds. Actually, due to the high contrast, my second attempt using magnetic lasso turned out much better.</p>

[kyleweems]

<p>The information in the one area of the sky is non-existant, but you can still do a lot to help the image.</p>

<p>A bit of color adjustment, some contrast, a multiply layer, some masking (I just paint them in, quick and easy if you have a wacom tablet), and a bit of adjustment to the interior as well to pull a bit from the shadows and make the inside match the outside a bit more..</p>

<p>Obviously in the future you want to do two exposures.. even if they aren't perfectly the same (won't be without a tripod) you can get pretty close to it, and that's all you need to steal some color and some information.</p>

<p>Disclaimer to prevent flames: there is no substitute for doing things perfect the first time, but not all situations in real life present themselves that way, deal with it :)</p><div></div>

[minicucci]

<p>While this post is likely obsolete, I did want to add one suggestion. When you are stuck with a blown-out, featureless sky, you can often use a modest gradient fill, using plausible sky colors and adjusting the gradient to variations in luminance. </p><div></div>