Help! Cloudy Day Hightlights Blown Out

[april_holtan]

<p>I've been shooting on my new 5DII all summer and this last wedding I did I am not at all happy with. I think I may have accidentally been in Landscape? Anyway my darks are way too dark (browns look black) and my highlights are totally blown out. Not to mention the weird orange glow. What did I do? What to do to fix it? I'm using LR3 and CS5. . .</p>

<p>Cloudy/Overcast day, afternoon.</p>

<div></div>

[joe_fikes]

<p>Did you shoot raw files? If you did, you can open them in Bridge (CS5) and if the highlights aren't absolutely blown out, you might be able to rescue them AND supply some "fill light" to the areas that are too dark. You can do much the same thing with DPP. If you didn't shoot raw... I'll bet you will from now on.</p>

<p>Joe</p>

[april_holtan]

<p>I did shoot in RAW, but why are my photos so bad?</p>

[joe_fikes]

<p>Great! I think you'll be able to adjust them to your taste. For example, if you were set to Landscape, you can easily change that in DPP. I'd recommend Standard, but it's your choice.</p>

<p>I can't see a big problem on the small image you posted. Could you show us an enlarged view that includes a small part of the bride's dress along with something dark? I'd just like to see that the lace in her dress still has texture and detail in it. If it does, then the image isn't overexposed.</p>

<p>Light from an overcast sky has a "flat" look that isn't particularly flattering. Eyebrows tend to cast shadows into the eyes, the tops of people's heads are overly bright, etc. Also, all cameras (film or digital) exaggerate the difference between light and dark areas as compared with what we see with our eyes. Just be glad you didn't have to deal with full sunlight.</p>

<p>I hope this helps.</p>

<p>Joe.</p>

 

[fmueller]

<p>I am sure you can do better from a RAW file, but even in the small JPG you posted, a lot of highlight and shadow detail can be revealed by applying a simple curve.</p><div></div>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>Quick edit in Adobe Camera Raw. There's a lot of data even in the jpeg as Frank pointed out. The Raw should yield even more especially in those blown highlights.</p><div></div>

[pjmeade]

<p>I suspect that on a cloudy day, ambient light levels will have been lower than usual and the camera has given a longer exposure time - or f-number to compensate, thereby giving a higher than expected exposure. <br>

In dark conditions, it's always advisable to under expose from the exposure the camera suggests. I think the histogram is our friend here.</p>

<p>Hope this helps.</p>

[april_holtan]

<p>Thank you for the responses! I do need to study the 'how to read a histogram' more and utilize it. I've got the basics, but need to learn more.</p>

[tom_mann1]

<p>As everyone already said, you can do a lot more/better starting with the RAW file, but you can do quite a lot even starting with only the JPG. </p>

<p>Here's my take on it using ACR (much like Tim, but not quite as much), then taking it into PS to fix some of the hotspots (eg foreheads), tame the lobster skin, a bit of vignetting, etc.</p>

<p>Tom M</p><div></div>

[peter_mckone]

<p>Photoshop is good at replacing blown out skies. I use a method from a Scott Kelby book. You open another photo with good sky, copy it to the clipboard, select the bad sky in you main image, create a blank layer, and edit/copy selection from clipboard. If you don't have the Kelby book, Google "Photoshop replace sky". There are many tutorials online.</p>

[zml]

<p>"Bad" exposure, wrong WB, no fill-flash and - most likely - no HTP.<br>

First, try using weak fill flash (or a big reflector) in flat, dull light.<br>

Secondly, yes, you CAN adjust WB in post but a MUCH BETER way is to obtain custom WB while shooting. Tt looks like you were doing "informal formals" outside in a fairly constant lighting, so obtaning the proper exposure off a gray card then setting custom WB off the same card would help you immensly. Then there is HTP - a great solution for white gown/black suit exposure issues. Yes, with HTP you'll get a bit of more noise in the shadows but at ISO 200 this is inconsequential.</p>

[William Michael]

<blockquote>

<p>my darks are way too dark (browns look black) . . . Not to mention the weird orange glow.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>I believe these two issues are mainly caused in your POST PRODUCTION of the image:<br />Although the EXIF states that you had MANUAL WHITE BALANCE and if so then <strong><em>it appears that the manual white balance setting was incorrect</em></strong>.</p>

<p>***</p>

<blockquote>

<p>and my <strong>highlights are totally blown out.</strong> <em><strong>What did I do? What to do to fix it</strong></em>? I'm using LR3 and CS5. . . Cloudy/Overcast day, afternoon. . . I did shoot in RAW, but why are my photos so bad? I do need to study the 'how to read a histogram' more and utilize it. I've got the basics, but need to learn more.</p>

</blockquote>

<p>The bottom of her Gown appears BLOWN OUT.<br />That will be difficult to fix if the file has no detail – you could clone the area or use a similar method.</p>

<p>I suspect TWO ISSUES <strong><em>at Camera</em></strong> are mainly responsible for this Blown Out area –</p>

<ol>

<li><strong>You do not fully understanding your Camera’s TTL Metering and the uses of it.</strong></li>

<li><strong>You do not have a ballpark exposure in mind, when addressing an Available Light Scene.</strong></li>

</ol>

<p><br />Addressing Point 1.<br />The EXIF states you were in MANUAL CAMERA MODE and using PARTIAL METERING MODE and you made the shot at - <strong><em>F/11 @ 1/160s @ ISO1600 - no Flash Fill</em></strong>. . .<br />PARTIAL METERING MODE on a 5DMkII reads an area of about 8% comprising a circle at about the middle of the SCENE.</p>

<p><em>What part of the image did you meter and why did you choose that part of the image?</em><br /><em>And from the meter reading you made, how and why did you adjust the MANUAL EXPOSURE for the shot?</em></p>

<p>***</p>

<p>Addressing Point 2.<br />The scene appears to have Very Soft and Indistinct Shadows and shot in OPEN OVERCAST DAYLIGHT.<br />As such one would expect the scene is at about EV12½ to EV12 and thus the ballpark exposure to be about 2½ to 3 Stops more open from the ‘F/16 Rule’.<br /><br />This guesstimate exposure would therefore be around F/6.3 ~ 5.6 @ 1/1600 @ ISO1600 (or F/12~11 @ 1/400s @ ISO1600).<br /><br />So with that ballpark exposure in one’s mind <em>and considering the <strong>even lighting</strong> in the scene</em> - IF the camera’s TTL were reading F/11 @ 1/160s @ ISO1600 there should be a red flag which warrants investigation as the exposure seems 1 to 2 stops over exposed for that Available Light Scene.</p>

<p>The HISTOGRAM should have shown that there were BLOWN AREAS.<br />However if using a 5DMkII I would have used the HIGHLIGHT ALERT FUNCTION and noted the ‘Blinkies’ on the LCD scene as a first indication, as I do not use the Histogram all that much.</p>

<p>WW</p>

[pmind]

<p>As has been suggested already, fill-flash is your friend on overcast days.</p>

[tom_mann1]

<p><em>"Secondly, yes, you CAN adjust WB in post but a MUCH BETER </em>(sic)<em> way is to obtain custom WB while shooting."</em></p>

<p>That statement is simply not true if a RAW file is available. More convenient, perhaps -- better, no. If a raw file is available, the same mathematical processing is performed on the RAW data be an external RAW converter as is done by the in-camera software, almost independently of which RAW converter software you use.</p>

<p>OTOH, if only a JPG is available, then, compared to in-camera adjustments, the WB adjustment in LR or ACR is much inferior in older versions of LR or ACR, but has improved considerably in the current versions of LR and ACR.</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

[zml]

<p><em>> That statement is simply not true if a RAW file is available. More convenient, perhaps -- better, no</em></p>

<p>Well, yes, you CAN, but especially in the OP very complex light (clouds, color cast all around and the wedding mix of teal, white and who knows what else...) in my own experience I can ALWAYS get a better and quicker WB using the "there and then" custom setting. Simple and effective with the added benefit of getting the exposure right as well :-) Try it, you may like it...<br>

There is way too much IMO reliance on post to fix "exposure time" booboos but not all booboos are easy to fix. RAW is malleable to a point but only to a point.<br>

Besides, when shooting weddings, I simply have no desire to custom process thousands of shots so I'd rather get it right (or at least consistently wrong, meaning no auto WB, P modes, etc.) while shooting, so I can process the bulk of images in batches.</p>

[philip_wilson]

<p>In difficult lighting and images which contain a high dynamic range you may want to consider bracketing you can easily set up a three exposure bracket on the 5DII - I usually do 2/3 or a stop either way from the optimum and will often dial in compensation for the central setting). This article may be of interest to you<br>

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/optimizing_exposure.shtml</p>

[hjoseph7]

<p>Usually when the highlights are blown out, then the shadows are OK, but both your shadows AND your highlights are blown out ? Did you boost the contrast settings on your camera ? I mean this not a complicated shot since you are in a shaded area and the cloudy sky is almost non existant.</p>

[Tim_Lookingbill]

<p>April's posted shot (if that is how it came out of the camera) is simply off slightly in WB with way too much contrast for a cloudy sky scene.</p>

<p>To get it right incamera with the least post processing just do a custom WB using a neutral target and find an incamera setting that reduces contrast so exposure can be increased.</p>

<p>That's exactly the kind of edits I and I'm assuming others did in post. ACR's Fill slider did most of the heavy lifting for me which shouldn't be necessary for a scene shot under diffused lighting. </p>

<p>Just remember when you reduce contrast, you can increase exposure more or less making sure the incamera's histogram highlights don't bunch up as a spike on the right. When I edit similarly lit scenes in ACR, I first set Black Point and Contrast to zero and Contrast Curve to a flat line (Linear) and then gradually increase Exposure and work backward gradually increasing Contrast and Black Point while maintaining highlights.</p>

[zml]

<p><em>> Histogram</em><br>

Unless your post processing software can read the RAW image tags, the histogram in, say, ACR, will look differently than that in Canon DPP or in-camera.<br>

One underused (not used at all by most..?) feature of Canon is Picture Style Editor which allows setting the JPEG parameters (and thus the RAW tags) to your liking which, if you shoot JPEG + RAW, will give you instant reference when using software that doesn't read RAW tags. Picture styles in tandem with custom WB, proper exposure and - when needed - HTP, can greatly simplify post processing.</p>

[Uhooru]

<p>What was your ISO set at? Higher ISO's will tend to compress the tonal curve. Generally speaking, cloudy days are like a big soft box, light generally diffused assuming a solid cloud cover. Not sure what you had. But even though full cloudy is flat light, it is also even light and you should have less problem with blowing out highlights. That's why I wonder if you had the camera set on a higher ISO.</p>

[Uhooru]

<p>What was your ISO set at? Higher ISO's will tend to compress the tonal curve. Generally speaking, cloudy days are like a big soft box, light generally diffused assuming a solid cloud cover. Not sure what you had. But even though full cloudy is flat light, it is also even light and you should have less problem with blowing out highlights. That's why I wonder if you had the camera set on a higher ISO.</p>

[keith reeder]

<p>Not the OP, but the Exif says 32mm, f/11, 1/160, <strong>ISO 1600</strong>, 5D Mk II, Barry.</p>

[tom_mann1]

<p>ML: <em>"Well, yes, you CAN, but especially in the OP very complex light (clouds, color cast all around and the wedding mix of teal, white and who knows what else...) in my own experience I can ALWAYS get a better and quicker WB using the "there and then" custom setting...."</em></p>

<p>Since the same data and the same math is used to correct the WB, whether it is done in-camera or in software, any difference that you find probably comes from more familiarity with one method than the other. Personally, I can always get a better WB while sitting at home looking at my calibrated monitor than trying to determine precisely the optimal position for my gray card when I'm on-site.</p>

<p>As you mentioned, scenes like this with multiple light sources are sufficiently complex that, for the best results, a single WB and a single tone curve doesn't suffice for the entire scene. For the tweaked version of her JPG that I posted, I separately masked the subjects from the background and applied separate WB and tonal adjustments to both. You certainly can't do that in-camera.</p>

<p>ML: <em>"...Try it, you may like it... There is way too much IMO reliance on post to fix "exposure time" booboos but not all booboos are easy to fix. ... ... Besides, when shooting weddings, I simply have no desire to custom process thousands of shots so I'd rather get it right (or at least consistently wrong, meaning no auto WB, P modes, etc.) while shooting, so I can process the bulk of images in batches...."</em></p>

<p>The counter argument to the above is that I would much rather not risk missing a shot because I'm fiddling with my settings. I'd rather get reasonably close in WB exposure, contrast, etc while at the gig and then spend the time in PP grouping them into batches and then put on the finishing touches at my leisure. I'm pretty fast with PS, have a good computer and have my workflow nailed down, so I come down on that side of the fence. That being said, I can certainly understand your PoV / approach and know quite a few other guys that shoot your way.</p>

<p>ML: <em>"...RAW is malleable to a point but only to a point..."</em></p>

<p>Sure. Everything has it's limits, but the point is that RAW is actually more vastly malleable when processed on a computer compared to when it's processed in-camera by its firmware and extremely limited adjustments.</p>

<p>Cheers,</p>

<p>Tom M</p>

[William Michael]

<p>Correctly executed Flash as Fill would surely benefit the shot.<br />BUT if the OP used the Camera’s TTL METERING in PARTIAL MODE for calculating the exposure and then MANUAL CAMERA MODE to make the shot and in so doing over exposed such a large area of the Wedding Gown:<br />IMO there are rudimentary elements of how to attain the correct exposure which require addressing, before the OP moves to using Flash as Fill and whether or not she uses Manual or Auto WHITE BALANCE.<br>

(Not commenting on the value to the OP of discussing Flash as Fill and White Balance – ALL that IS VALUABLE -<br>

<em><strong>I am just restating my point of view that the OP has to get the EXPOSURE CORRECT, first.</strong></em>)<br>

WW</p>

[Uhooru]

<p>Thanks Keith, dumb question, what are you using to read the data i looked on get info on my mac and had most of what you had except for ISO.</p>