Fixing overexposed picture

[keren7]

Hi,

I am trying to fix an overexposed picture and this is the best that I could do.

http://picasaweb.google.com/kdorner77/Debbie

See if you can do better...

Thanks,

Keren.

[cspringer]

you need to get some color in the overexposed area and then you can do other edits like add texture, healing, cloning, etc. I would either color on a layer (color mode) or make a Selective Color adjustment layer (WHITE) and match the other skin tones.

[mistermonday]

Color over areas that have been blown out to pure white a bit tricky. Use of Selective Color is one way as pointed out by CS. Another is to convert the image to LAB Color and add a blank layer above the background. Sample a color skin which is adjacent to the blown out area and paint on the blank layer. Change the new layers blend mode to color. After you restore some color, you can convert the image back to RGB and apply a shadow / highlight adjustment to the highlights only in order to darken the areas which are now very close to but not completely blown out. The repaired areas should then have some noise or texture added to them to make complete the repairs. The image below is a quick fix using LAB to add back some color.
Regards, MM

[Juergen D]

I thought I'd try the newest version of Adobe Camera Raw (4.1), which will let you adjust JPEGs, on this image. Here are the settings:

Temperature +9
Tint +9
Exposure -0.45
Blacks 15
Brightness -9
Contrast +11
Clarity 42
Saturation +8

No other adjustments were made after opening in PSE5.

Juergen

[raymushpol]

As long as we are on the subject, I have a wedding photo that I think was overexposed by around 5 F stops. But it was a raw image file so I recovered quite a bit in the raw processor. Done a lot of cloning so the image is looking pretty good. However, with all of the processing the brides skin look to much like plastic. I have tried using noise and grain filters but it does not really look that good. Any idea about finding and applying a pattern or texture that looks like real skin.

Please note I am using Photoshop Elements 3.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.