Help with streaks of light area

[Noelf]

Ok I'm almost to a point where I'm happy with this photo, but it has two sections that have almost spotlights of light down.

I can go through and hand redo the sections if necessary but I thought I would check if anyone had any good tricks

This is a link to the whole pic

Whole car

And this is a slice of the issue with the arrows pointing to what I'm talking about.

Slice of picture

- Noel

[Doug Nelson]

Looks like a job for a levels or curves adjustment layer with a gradient on the layer mask. At least I'd start with a gradient and then hand-paint the rest of the mask. You might also get by with a black fill layer set to multiply and then lower the opacity until it matches (but you'll still need that layer mask).

For strictly hand painting, make a new layer, fill with 50% gray, set blend mode to overlay. Take a soft brush with a very low opacity (like 5%) and paint black to darken, or white if you darken too much.

[12fretter]

I'm new and trying to learn. Why not use the art history brush after adjusting brightness and contrast so the lighted areas match the rest of the photo? Am I making things too compicated?

[Doug Nelson]

The history brush is certainly one way to go, but if you're not dead-on perfect in your adjustment there will be no way to fine-tune it. As for using the ART history brush, I guess I'd need to see a walkthrough since I have no idea what filter could be locally applied to make that adjustment.

[12fretter]

If you overdo the brightness/contrast adjustment on purpose, then use the art history brush, you can set your brush at 30-40% and do that fine-tune thing you mentioned. That's how I did the above copy.