Overexposed "Must Have" photo

[littlelynell]

While shooting a wedding, I had my assistant do a college reunion photo shoot for me. The college rep knew it would be my assistant and not me. As I viewed the images later, small groups were fine but the "all classes" photos are horrible. I don't think they can be saved but this is the main shot that the college wanted and I have to give them something usable or I can kiss any future jobs from them goodbye. She did the small groups in the shade. Because of the numbers, she took the larger group into the commons area which was pretty blasted by the afternoon sunlight. Using the "auto" mode, the camera had to have read the shadows for exposure and now all the white hair, white shirts and bare skin have nothing.

I've tried several techniques that have worked in the past but the photos were nothing like this. All you pros out there --- HELP!!!

Lynell

[Gary Richardson]

hi Lynell,

Unfortunately there are areas that are totally blown out, and there is no info to recover, the pic below is as good as I can get it.

I take it there's no possibility of taking a re-shoot.

[littlelynell]

I wish a reshoot was possible but no such luck.........

[littlelynell]

Gary,

What were the steps you used in your example? I can give it a try on this end.

Thanks.

[Daviskw]

Hi There

There are a lot of blown out areas. You will need to use some of your other pictures for reference. Add texture and color back into the clothes from other pictures. I quickly found some concrete to add as walk… not very good but with time you could do better. I used selective color and a cloud render layer for the sky and to make it look like there is a roof. Otherwise with time you can at least make it presentable.

Butch

[mistermonday]

Lynell, as Gary has pointed out, a large percent of the image has blown out area where there is absolutely no detail. So it depends how much you want to do. I did a very sloppy job to show you what could be done in 5 minutes. You can take the image a long way if you want to put in some time.

First duplicate the layer and set the blend mode to multiply to restore some density in the areas where detail / color still exist. Next convert the image from RGB to LAB color mode. LAB will allow you to force some color into the completely blown out areas. To do this, add a blank layer and change the Blend mode to color. Sample a skin color either from the image or your color picker and paint into someone's face. Similarly paint over clothing with different colors. This will help make the image look better. If you have lots of time you can actually do skin grafting and clothes grafting from other images but this would be very time consuming.
Other things you can do would be to paste in a new sky and driveway. In this 5 min example I just filled the driveway in with gray and added some noise.

When you are all done. flatten the image and return it to RGB.
Good luck with the work,
Regards, Murray

[manta1900]

OOOOOPS.... you burned some....

All the info I could get (good and bad) is there!

[Cameraken]

Hi Lynell.

Image > Adjust > Equalize.
Noise added to blown out areas
Swampy’s Sky tutorial used on the sky and path
Layer set to colour to paint out the pink introduced by equalize
Levels to darken the grass

You should be able to get a decent result from a raw image as it won’t have the compression problems of the posted image.
My picture could be improved by cloning out more of the artefacts and more time spent on the roof but this may not be necessary on the raw file.

Hope this helps.

Ken.

[Gary Richardson]

hi Lynell,

Didn't do too much.

Duplicated image, set new layer blend to multiply.

New levels adjustment layer, took the input centre pointer to the right to darken a little, then adjusted the white pointer on the output slider to reduce the intensity of the whites a touch.

As others have already done, it may be possible to select a suitable sky and insert it. Look for one that is similar to the conditions on the day, one that is too blue will stick out like a sore thumb if you don't get the masking perfect.

Ditto with the drive, although getting the texture right there will be difficult.

Good luck with your image.

Gary

[mistermonday]

Ken, good move! I keep forgetting how useful this seldom used adjustment is. The only problem is it is adding color somewhat randomly to those areas that have none and I suspect on a higher resolution image it might not look as good. It may also make it more difficult to colorize if that is the intent. In will try an experiment on a similar hi res raw file I have that has been oe'd.
Regards, Murray

[Cameraken]

Hi Murray.

Thanks.
Yes, the equalize did add (mainly pink) blocks of random colour but I thought these blocks were mainly coming from the jpeg compression, so I would not expect them to be as pronounced in a raw file. (I assume Lynell is working in raw)

The equalize expands the histogram and so does lead to some posterization.

Please post your findings I would be interested to see the results.

The other think I am finding useful is Swampy’s blown out sky tutorial. (Absolute checked) This works on anything that is clipped. Blown out paths even blown out skin.

Ken.

[littlelynell]

Thanks all....I'm going to try these suggestions tonight. Matching the sky of the day won't be hard because the wedding I was at was an outdoor about 10 miles from the college. Basically, the exact same sky dynamics.

I'll keep watching for new suggestions and let you know how this mess turns out. Appreciate all the help!

[Kraellin]

well, the bad news is, your assistant has to die. so, pick your method, take him/her out back and do the deed quickly and quietly, preferably with his/her own camera as the weapon of choice.

the other bad news is, there is no way with any filter or action or automaticity to restore the blown out areas. if you want those back you're going to have to hand restore them, either as butch suggested from the other images or by guessing. no other choice there.

the good news is, if you do have decent pics of the same people you might be able to fake the whole image by borrowing all of the people and just compositing them into a large group shot. you could even do it over this posted image.

and, if you do decide to let your assistant live, they need to be put on a short tether and have basic photographic terminology cleared up. like, 'define what a camera is.'. 'define exposure'. 'define light' and other semi-important things like that.

also, you might want to teach him about group shots. group shots shld NEVER be taken as if it's a panoramic landscape shot. even if you crop the current image it's still too far away (which, given the damage here, may work in your favor, ironically enough). large group shots are taken one of two ways and always in tiers. chairs shld have been brought out for the second row and even the third. or, you shoot it in a triangle fashion with the fewest folks in the front and stagger it out wider towards the back and always the tallest in the back.

sorry if i sound a bit testy on this one but i spent HOURS and HOURS cleaning up a 'professional' photographer's shots on a very large personal family reunion which was done very much like this one you posted. the shot and results were almost exactly the same. grrrr....!

you can also try a histogram adjustment on your image, along with all the other excellent suggestions here. it wont restore the blown out areas but can also help in re-balancing what is there. i looked at the histo on this and there is, naturally enough, a very LARGE spike on the right.

craig

[littlelynell]

Okay Craig, at least you made me laugh a couple of times and, yes, the killing scenario already crossed my mind. The funny thing is she (my assist.) received a degree in photography a couple of years ago. Hmmmmm. Spooky.

I do have excellent closeup up shots of each person so I may try a very time intensive "Frankenstein" job on this one. You know, take different pieces & parts to make one good one.

I've already faced the music with the college on this. My philisophy is to let someone know in advance that you're working on it before they have a chance to scream at you. Doesn't always work that way but its a great theory.

Again, I'll let people know which way I went with this. And may include an end result to view. Maybe.
Lynell

[Photo678]

doesn't anyone bracket anymore?...or take more than one shot.

and where is your fill flash?...that's almost an impossible shot with no flash...dont be so quick to blame the assistant