PS7 - Overexposed Protrait

[sstinman]

I have a picture where the people in the foregound are over-exposed where thier skin is showing. Their clothes and hair and the background are OK.

How can I reduce, what amounts to glare, off the subjects skin while the other parts of the picture are held the same or maybe brightened a bit (using PS7)?

[CyberDyneSystems]

I Use the "history brush"

You can do it by making a selection as well,. but once I discovered the history brush I pretty much gave up selections and all the problems they can cause...

Apply the level settings you want to the whole pictre to get your backgrounds and clothing the way you want them.

Then grab the history brush,. put a check mark next to the point BEFROE you apllied the level changes in the "History" menu to the right

...and simply paint away the changes you just applied on the areas where you dont want changes,. in this case the skin.

Then repeat the process this time adjusting the levels just so that the skin tones are where you want them... (if they aren't completely "washed out",.. if they are level won't help)

...and then now paint out the rest of the image with the history brush again, but remeber to slect the new point in history before you paint (ei after the first level change but before the second one :) )

If the highlights on the skin are washed out white, then do only the frst step and history brush, and then you will need to try to manually fix the skin tone with the clone tool.

[sstinman]

Thanks for the tip. It almost got the picture to where I want it. Now I have to go in with other tools to touch-up the most over-exposed areas. But the history brush did 90% of the job.

Thanks again!