Overblown tunnel

[scarlet artemis]

http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8396/8624457918_eeff02f0a8_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/scarlet_artemis/8624457918/) _IGP5913 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/scarlet_artemis/8624457918/) by scarlet artemis (http://www.flickr.com/people/scarlet_artemis/), on Flickr

Just wondering, what can I do here to get the overblown part of the photo beyond the tunnel to look a little darker? I was thinking of an Orton Effect for the trees but don't have a second image to merge...any ideas? vanessa

[ricktas]

You can't. Once you over-expose an area of a photo to pure white, then that is it, it is pure white. You cannot bring it back, the data doesn't exist at those pixels.

So you ask for ideas, mine is go back, shoot it again, and don't overexpose it. Get it right in camera, and then improve on it in post processing. Post processing cannot fix everything, and should not be considered as a way to fix things in the first place.

The Orton effect creates a glow around things in your photo. I think it is good as it is, it doesn't need to Orton effect. What you should be working on at present is learning how to expose at the time of capture, correctly. Then when you have a good photo, look at enhancing it with post processing.

[steveb57]

If you expose for the highlights you can usually recover the shadows in post processing without too much degradation of the image details. Shooting in RAW format is best for optimal results.

[scarlet artemis]

This is the second edit of the picture using a gradient tool in Lightroom...i think it looks a little better, I just wanted to darken the tree leaves a little with some sun still coming through...will be going back in a few weeks to reshoot when I don't have the baby with me...it's a difficult lighting situation for a beginner and I want to have another crack at it! thanks ricktas x http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8396/8626352899_66b206e7dc_b.jpg (http://www.flickr.com/photos/scarlet_artemis/8626352899/) Argyle tunnel 2013 (http://www.flickr.com/photos/scarlet_artemis/8626352899/) by scarlet artemis (http://www.flickr.com/people/scarlet_artemis/), on Flickr:)

[agb]

It is very difficult to get a proper exposure on such a subject. There is too much range in EV, and the sensor will not encompass that range. Almost the only way to get a good image in the end is to bracket and combine exposures.
Or allow that the blacks will be black and get some definition in the whites. Or wait for a day when there is not such a range of exposure values.

[scarlet artemis]

thanks AGB :) your signature also has some great advice - I take on board everything I learn here, so lucky to have such a great community :flash:

[arthurking83]

While the are of the trees that you wanted to recover wasn't fully blown out .. the recovery has taken a turn for the worse!

In the second image, while you have recovered some more detail colour in the tree, the side issue now is that the sky in that area(behind the tree) looks battered and bruised ... ie. not overly complimentary.
It looks recovered.

In general, as long as you shoot raw, you can still recover some detail in blown out highlights.
If you use exposure compensation in PP, you should see some of that detail come back pretty well .. some cameras are capable of up to 2Ev recovery in post.

Your camera model will be the deciding factor here.

The oither side issue with the image with respect to dynamic range, is that you seem to have used a heavy contrasty processing treatment.
For higher dynamic range in a given scene, the less contrasty the look, the more dynamic range you can extract. Next time try a more moderate contrast curve too.

[farmmax]

Over exposed areas (provided there is some detail in them) are very quickly bought back to a reasonable extent in Photoshop. I have done this edit to your photo in less than 30 seconds with a quick edit on the exposed areas.

Is that what you were asking to be done? Please excuse the rough job, it was more to show you that not all is lost.

To do this, add a new layer over your original photo in Photoshop. Set the blending mode of the new layer to "Overlay". Take a brush and set your colour to black. Drop the opacity of your brush down, normally low to around 10 - 30% and choose a soft brush. Paint black on the overlay layer in the areas that are over exposed. The colour will start coming back. Experiment with brush opacity, or keep brushing over the area until it looks right. Painting with white will brighten underexposed areas.

You will notice that while the colour is darkening, it may become too saturated. I found the easiest way to correct this, is to make a copy the overlay layer you painted on. Then change the blending mode on this copied layer from "overlay" to "saturation". Don't panic when it appears to totally desaturate painted on area. Just reduce the opacity of the saturated layer down until the colour returns at the level you want.

Sorry if I got you lost :)

[Analog6]

I'd be shooting two images here, one for in the tunnel and one for the view through the tunnel, and combining in Photoshop using adjustment layers. There is no way you can capture this level of dynamic range in one shot.

[farmmax]

I agree if the opportunity to reshoot the photo is there, I'd go with 3 bracketed shots. Beats having to Photoshop, but sometimes we don't have another chance to retake the photo.

[mongo]

In situations like these you need to take multiple shots at different exposure with the intention of creating one image later by merging the correctly exposed sections of each image into the finished single image.

This was not a RAW image but nonetheless, its a red rag to a bull for Mongo so he had to have a play with the Jpeg anyway. Too many tools and steps to recount and still nowhere near where you would ideally want it but it was fun. There was a lot of colour cast and over saturation to correct also. The cast is usually a bluish cast from the darker areas.

99555

[Analog6]

I agree if the opportunity to reshoot the photo is there, I'd go with 3 bracketed shots. Beats having to Photoshop, but sometimes we don't have another chance to retake the photo.

The Op in this case said she's going back. It will be interesting to see another go at this. Good work mongo, I resisted because it was a jpeg, as you say, can't do much with them.

[Mat]

I would agree with a re-shoot. If shooting in RAW you could get away with 2 images, 1 for the highlights and one for the shaddows. There should be enough of an exposure overlap to cover the rest of the image but more than 2 would be better. I like the result from Mongo and feel that this is about as good as a recovery could get for this image.