How to fix an extreme highlight 'hotspot' ?

[frankg]

I have an available light portrait where the sun reflects off the subjects forehead. I tried the Adj brush in ACR. I also tried to 'burn' it in by saving the raw file as a tif and creating a new 'soft light' layer & burning it in with a 15% opacity brush. It's reasonable, I have some tone in the forehead but I'd prefer more. I suspect that there must be another way to do this as pro retouchers would do and am hoping to get some instruction here. I'll upload a jpeg from the raw (2000px) & please let me know if a bigger or different file format would be preferable. Thanks in anticipation. _DSF4158.jpg

[Sabrina81]

image_96873.jpg I used the clone stamp on a blank layer (Photoshop). Also some other tweaks for color temp, shadow details, etc.

[frankg]

Thank you Sabrina.
Do you mean to open a Ps Menu>Layer>New Layer
Normal blend mode?
and then ....?
Clone from another part of the forehead around the hotspot?
More step-by-step details if possible please

[Sabrina81]

Thank you Sabrina.
Do you mean to open a Ps Menu>Layer>New Layer
Normal blend mode?
and then ....?
Clone from another part of the forehead around the hotspot?
More step-by-step details if possible please

Yep, that's the way. Slightly soften the brush and work at about 30% brush opacity. Make sure "Current and below" is set for the clone stamp. That allows the tool to sample from the pixel layer and clone on the blank layer.
EDIT: If the cloned area looks too smooth, you can open a second blank layer and use the healing brush to restore texture, sampling from an area of skin that has more texture. That would go right on top of the cloning, but on its own layer.

[frankg]

"slightly" soften brush - do you mean Hardness at about 50%-75% more or less?
& for the Layer - Normal & 100%

[Sabrina81]

"slightly" soften brush - do you mean Hardness at about 50%-75% more or less?
& for the Layer - Normal & 100%

Yes, about 75% hardness on the clone stamp. 100% opacity on the layer.
Keyboard shortcut for clone stamp: Hold Shift and hit the [ key to soften, ] key to harden. That jumps 25% each click.

[frankg]

Thank you very much for your help. I'll give it a whirl. Appreciated!

[Gary]

I opened a copy of your original in ACR, moved the highlights slider to the far left and hit OK. In C.C., placed a hide-all mask overtop of this layer and used a soft white brush to add back his forehead and bright portions of his jacket.

96872.jpg