# More PS help with a image



## wsgroves (Sep 24, 2013)

Hi guys. 
How would you go about fixing this. Raw really doesnt do anything (to me). I cant figure out how to get the exp down on her skin (noob).
Any help is appreciated. 

Scott


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## Jim Saunders (Sep 24, 2013)

Lightroom 5: Exposure -0.24, contrast +20, highlights -100, shadows +88, clarity +10, vibrance +10. Maybe two minutes' work.

Jim


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## wsgroves (Sep 24, 2013)

Thanks Jim I will have a look.

Scott


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## Jim Saunders (Sep 25, 2013)

No worries. If you're not using manual exposure then hightlight tone priority might help on shots like that to get the detail on the flowers and her face.

Jim


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## Famateur (Sep 25, 2013)

Couple of thoughts...to take with a grain of salt as I'm just some dude on the internet.

Preventive

I know you're asking for advice on fixing what's already happened, but it's helpful to know that the lighting conditions were setting you up for this challenge to begin with. Of course, we can't always choose when and where we shoot! That being said...

1. Even with adjustments, detail in the white bow isn't recoverable -- it's burned (at least in the JPEG). This is a product of the harsh light. Looking at the shadows, I'd guess this was shot somewhere around 10-11AM or 3-4PM -- definitely unforgiving light. 

2.) I know it seems counter-intuitive in bright light like this, but fill flash would be one way to tackle the challenging light (one reason why I still like pop-up flashes). You can bring your exposure down to tame the harsh sun and then fill with an appropriate amount of light. Easier said than done, though, when you have a baby turning into the sun, then away from the sun, then back into the sun!

3.) Another option, if you have someone to assist you, is to use a diffuser of some kind to soften the light (even a white bed sheet would probably work). That would take the edge off the highlights, allowing more recovery of detail.

Corrective

Since you're working with a JPEG file, you're a lot more limited in what you can do to correct things like exposure and white balance. Jim demonstrated well how much you can improve the file from what it is, but I'm confident it could be improved much further from a RAW file. That being said...

1.) The next thing to correct after the exposure/highlights is the orange glow (kind of like banding) that is visible along the middle and sun-edge of each arm and at a 45 degree angle on the sunlit cheek (this can happen in sunset images, too). You might need to use a brush or layer to tone down the saturation. The challenge is that you can't just bring down the orange, or the rest of the skin will look pale and sickly. If this was a RAW file, it might be possible to desaturate the orange channel and then adjust color temperature to bring back the warmth (you'd have to do that locally, though, so as not to spoil the white balance of the whole image.

2. I'm curious to know what it is about RAW that doesn't work for you. When I first started dabbling in RAW processing, I was using Digital Photo Professional. I found it difficult and tedious, and I struggled to get results that were better than the JPEGs coming from my camera (although the CA correction was very nice). Lightroom, on the other hand, is much easier, in my opinion, and more powerful. I really enjoy using it, and my processing results have improved. With a few good tutorials on YouTube, you can get a good start. If you haven't yet tried Lightroom, you might consider it.

3.) Just to beat the RAW vs. JPEG horse some more (I thought I saw it twitching still), the camera makes white balance, contrast, noise, sharpening and other decisions for you, baked into the image. In this case, it looks like it sacrificed highlight detail for shadow detail. You can see the shaded side of her face okay, but her bow and sunlit skin are fried. With a RAW image in Lightroom, you could selectively bring down highlights to recover any detail that's there while still boosting the shadows as necessary. Local adjustment brushes give you even more flexibility.

Anyway, I hope this is helpful, and I apologize if you already know or have thought of all this stuff. Maybe it will be useful for someone else. 

By the way, if you have a RAW file for this image, I'd be interested to see how much more pushing/pulling can be done.


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## wsgroves (Sep 25, 2013)

Thanks Fam and I agree with everything you said and you are right.
I was just out shooting pix at the park of my little girl and knew the light was bad (once I got there).
I didnt have any extra equip on hand.

As far as RAW, I do have the RAW file...I meant I wasn't able to get it looking right either in PS is all.
I always shoot raw +mjpg.
I cant upload the raw here as it wont let me.
Scott


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## wsgroves (Sep 25, 2013)

Try this raw link.
http://wikisend.com/download/470514/A84A0904.CR2


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## Jim Saunders (Sep 25, 2013)

How does this grab you? The flowers are largely blown but the rest seems at least ok.

Jim


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## Famateur (Sep 25, 2013)

Jim Saunders said:


> How does this grab you? The flowers are largely blown but the rest seems at least ok.
> 
> Jim



I see you tamed the orange glow quite nicely. Well done, Jim.


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## Famateur (Sep 25, 2013)

wsgroves said:


> I was just out shooting pix at the park of my little girl and knew the light was bad (once I got there).
> I didnt have any extra equip on hand.



I know how that is! You gotta do what you can with what you have, and it looks like you did pretty well. 



wsgroves said:


> I meant I wasn't able to get it looking right either in PS is all.



Gotcha. Jim beat me to the RAW file (thanks for posting that) and did a great job with it. What do you think of the before and after?

I might fiddle around with the RAW file, too, if I can squeeze it in tonight.

By the way, adorable little girl you have there! She'll grow up way too fast...


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## Jim Saunders (Sep 25, 2013)

Famateur said:


> Jim Saunders said:
> 
> 
> > How does this grab you? The flowers are largely blown but the rest seems at least ok.
> ...



Thanks, I didn't do anything specifically to fix it; The only local corrections were brushstrokes to her face to bring up the exposure and to tame the flowers. Maybe LR5 does something different on JPEG export.

Jim


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## Pi (Sep 25, 2013)

Not an easy image. Blown highlights and low contrast.


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## aseek (Sep 25, 2013)

I was curious to see if I could help improve the original... sorry if it's a departure from the original. I'm new at this so I may have butchered it :-\

(edit: replaced it with another edit)


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## SirClownfish (Sep 25, 2013)

Not an easy one, but here's my try. Processed in RawTherapee + a very minor brightness/contrast adjustment in GIMP. Here is the .pp3 from RT: http://pastebin.com/R5wdUMwb


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## Famateur (Sep 25, 2013)

SirClownfish said:


> Not an easy one, but here's my try. Processed in RawTherapee + a very minor brightness/contrast adjustment in GIMP. [/url]



Yours is the best rendition for recovering highlights in the bow and smooth skin tone in the arms. Nice job.


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## Famateur (Sep 25, 2013)

Okay...big disclaimer: I did this late at night on my laptop, which has not been properly calibrated. If my stab at editing the image turns her into a blueberry, pumpkin or scoop of rainbow sherbet, I apologize in advance. ;D






A84a0904-01.jpg​


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## wsgroves (Sep 25, 2013)

Great work everybody. Much better then mine =).
Fam that is very good! Now I just have to figure out how to do all that touch work myself haha.
I can do a decent amount in photohop but yes, they are burned a little too much for my noobish skills to bring back.
I'll have a look through your longer post, and Jims again and see if I cant somewhat replicate what you have done.
Thanks,
Scott


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## Northstar (Sep 25, 2013)

i had 5 minutes so here ya go! 

the edit first, and then the original jpeg you posted.

aperture with a little help from Nik

a beautiful little girl! wish you health and happiness!

north


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## wsgroves (Sep 25, 2013)

Thank you North, much appreciated.

Here is a edit I am working on. Its not perfect but im trying to figure out the tools.

Scott


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## Famateur (Sep 25, 2013)

You're welcome, Scott. Thanks for letting us all take a shot at it. If there's one thing that makes a big difference in Lightroom, it's the local adjustment brush. Sometimes global adjustments just can't get you all the way there.

Quick example: Look at the parts of your daughter where her skin is in shadow (face and foot, especially). The shadowed tones are much cooler and can clash with the sunlit tones. You can try to change the white balance and warm things up a bit, but by the time the shadowed tones look okay, the rest has gone pumpkin. Enter the local adjustment brush - you can paint in just the shadows, boost the exposure slightly, warm the temperature a bit, bring a little more magenta tint to keep it balanced, and you end up with skin tones that are more consistent overall (at least on my monitor!).

Another spot was right under the nose, a couple of places around the mouth and between chin and bottom lip where the shadow had a greenish cast from the grass. Paint over those areas with a nicely feathered brush, and you can bring in just enough magenta to cancel the green. Probably not something anyone would notice directly, but it enhances the image, in my opinion.

Anyway, food for thought. Little things like that can make a big difference, even if you don't notice it directly.

Cheers...

PS: I bet that cold, shadowed foot jumps out at you now in your original image!

PPS: I wrote this before you posted your current edit, so my comments were about the original, not your latest! Latest looks excellent. A tad warm on my monitor, but still a lovely edit. Nice job.


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## Famateur (Sep 25, 2013)

Just saw your current edit. Much improved! What do you need us for?


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## Famateur (Sep 25, 2013)

Comparing on my external monitor at the office, I'd say my version is still a bit over exposed (note to self -- don't post process on 6-year-old laptop). You've done a better job smoothing out the skin tones and highlights, particularly on the ear and (her) left leg. I also notice you softened the shadows under (her) left foot and right hand. Good call.

The only two things I'd do are:

1.) Take a stab at helping the shadowed foot's skin tone warm up to be more consistent with the others.
2.) Back off the warmth of the image over all just a skosh. Again, that might just be my monitor.

Anyway, you've brought your image from "nice memory" to "lovely portrait", in my opinion. Great stuff...


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## wsgroves (Sep 25, 2013)

Thanks a lot Fam for the kind words.
I have to confess though...I cheated.
Since I dont have your mad PS/LR skillz, I took the regular over exposed image and tweaked it, then I
did the same tweaks to the image again but this time vastly underexposed it and combined the two.
After combining them I did the tweaking.
And yes I noticed that it is a little warm as well. I'll look into that.

I dont think it came out too bad though for my method haha


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## Famateur (Sep 25, 2013)

Hey, whatever works! It's not always about the tools you have but how you use them. That's actually a clever solution, and if that's what it takes to produce such a great image, rock on.


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## yablonsky (Sep 25, 2013)

This can be done in Camera Raw.


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## wsgroves (Sep 25, 2013)

Im going to have to remember to try more tweaking in camera raw yablonsky. That looks good for that.

Is this one too warm? It has a lot of color...


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## privatebydesign (Sep 25, 2013)

My play.

All done in ACR, the same controls as Lightroom.


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## wsgroves (Sep 25, 2013)

Very nice private. Care to share your settings?
Thanks,

Scott


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## Famateur (Sep 25, 2013)

Yeah...it's still a bit too warm (on my monitor), but if you're simulating "golden hour" sunlight, it's pretty darn close. If you're going for typical daylight tones, it needs a little more cooling (again, to my eye on my monitor). 

It's definitely well-saturated.  

The saturation is a little much for my taste (bright color is nice, but if it's the first thing I notice and not "Aw, she's so cute", then it's a little too much), but things like saturation and color temperature are exactly that -- a matter of taste. It's not quite as objective as whether or not a highlight or shadow has lost detail.

I say tweak it to your heart's content. Once it pleases you on your monitor or from your printer, it's a home run.


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## wsgroves (Sep 25, 2013)

Ack way too work. Just got home and looked on my monitor. I was doing it at work on my laptop....shhhhh lol.


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## privatebydesign (Sep 25, 2013)

wsgroves said:


> Very nice private. Care to share your settings?
> Thanks,
> 
> Scott



Here is the global adjustments panel and a second screenshot of the adjustment brush overlay and it's adjustments.

All told less than three minutes.


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## Famateur (Sep 25, 2013)

wsgroves said:


> Ack way too work. Just got home and looked on my monitor. I was doing it at work on my laptop....shhhhh lol.



Color management is such fun, isn't it?


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## wsgroves (Sep 26, 2013)

Thanks for your time private. Those help.

Scott


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## privatebydesign (Sep 26, 2013)

wsgroves said:


> Thanks for your time private. Those help.
> 
> Scott



You are very welcome, I should have bumped the shadows back down in the adjustment brush, my intention was to basically only edit the subject and not the background too much, but I have reduced the contrast and shadows in there more than I should have, but hey, it was a laptop screen!

To keep it looking natural to the eye this kind of exposure you need to keep the contrast in the subject and the background consistent, as others have said WB, saturation etc are matters of taste and I didn't touch them, just went for tonality, exposure and local contrast. Look at the shade in the trees, it needs to be more contrasty and darker than the shadows across the face.

Here is another version based on my first. I lowered shadows and added contrast to my first adjustment brush (effectively just the background), the first screenshot. I then did a second adjustment brush to lower contrast across the subject, I have done a screenshot of the second adjustment brush mask and the settings. Third image is the result of both new brush settings.


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