Blown Highlights - Comments and Help

[JeffreyG]

I was shooting pictures of my kids running around with their cousins. It was evening but the sun was bright and the metering was tough. Please look at these two examples and let me know if you find the blown highlights are distracting? I was forgetting to check the histogram, but even if I had I wonder if the subjects would have gotten too dark to bring up if I underexposed.

Also, do you think underexposing a bit and then bringing it up when converting would have helped? I think the main subject metering is what I wanted.

Thanks for any comments or advice.

[bacchanal]

I think when you under expose and then try to up the exposure in post, you can tend to introduce a fair bit of noise in the darker areas. If you shot in raw, you can take two different raw conversions and combine them via a layer mask. I think the thing to do though, would have been to use fill flash to try to even out the exposure a bit...probably would require something more than the pop-up flash when trying to compete with sunlight outdoors as in this situation.

[JeffreyG]

I think when you under expose and then try to up the exposure in post, you can tend to introduce a fair bit of noise in the darker areas. If you shot in raw, you can take two different raw conversions and combine them via a layer mask.
I think the detail in the blown areas is gone, right? So I might be able to at least tone down the glare but the detail is not coming back. This is why I'm wondering which outcome is better....meter as I did and have some non-critical areas blow out or meter underexposed to save the highlights and bring it up. Would I degrade the main image doing that just to save the highlights?

Maybe your suggestion is a good compomise....never mind the detail in the blown areas since it is non-central and just reduce the glare.

I think the thing to do though, would have been to use fill flash to try to even out the exposure a bit...probably would require something more than the pop-up flash when trying to compete with sunlight outdoors as in this situation.

Yeah...of course I was shooting with my 135mm prime and my hotshoe flash was inside in the camera bag. I figured the distance was too great for the onboard flash.

I didn't really think about it too hard since I wasn't checking the histogram. I shot film too long, I really struggle to remember to take advantage of the histogram.

[Jon, The Elder]

Jeff.....those kids are so darned cute, it almost doesn't matter.

Thats the Grandpa in me comin' out.

[bacchanal]

I think the detail in the blown areas is gone, right? So I might be able to at least tone down the glare but the detail is not coming back. This is why I'm wondering which outcome is better....meter as I did and have some non-critical areas blow out or meter underexposed to save the highlights and bring it up. Would I degrade the main image doing that just to save the highlights?

If you shot in RAW, you might be able to get some of the detail back. Not sure what editor you're using, but ACR is pretty good at recovering highlights, you can also darken the entire exposure to recover some of the highlights (if they aren't totally blown). Then make another conversion, and use layer masking to combine the two. Sometimes the highlights are just too blown to get any detail back, but sometimes it's surprising how much detail you can recover. I shoot mostly concert type stuff, where it can be pretty easy to mess up the exposure or blow a certian color channel, and i've used merged exposures to regain some detail a few times.

Anyway, for your images, I don't think the blown areas are really a big deal. You probably could have underexposed a bit more, and brought the exposure up a little in post, but it's hard to say. I wouldn't want to underexpose the subject more than maybe 2/3 stop or so, if that (underexposing really can cause noise problems), and that may not do much for the highlights (but again, if your'e shooting raw, it may give you more room to recover them). That's just one of those things that's going to depend on the situation, and the histogram can help with that.

[JeffreyG]

Jeff.....those kids are so darned cute, it almost doesn't matter.

Thanks. The girl in purple is one of my 10 nieces and nephews and the girl talking to her in the 1st pic. is my middle daughter. In total we have 13 kids (three mine) under 10 years old in the extended family. I really got the dSLR to shoot this bunch and I'm working hard to improve my skills as I go.

If you shot in RAW, you might be able to get some of the detail back

I shoot RAW, I find the saves on metering and white balance errors to be worth the file size. I couldn't get much detail back, I think that light pink dress was just too darn light in the direct sunlight.

Anyway, for your images, I don't think the blown areas are really a big deal. You probably could have underexposed a bit more, and brought the exposure up a little in post, but it's hard to say. I wouldn't want to underexpose the subject more than maybe 2/3 stop or so, if that (underexposing really can cause noise problems), and that may not do much for the highlights (but again, if your'e shooting raw, it may give you more room to recover them). That's just one of those things that's going to depend on the situation, and the histogram can help with that.

Overall I rate these pics as keepers (OK....I like them both quite a bit....you are looking at shrunk images and they are very sharp in full res.). When I first looked at them I was pretty happy. In RAW conversion I was looking to adjust the light levels etc and then I finally noticed the blown highlights (I'm terribly unobservant at times).

I appreciate any and all comments and help. It's one of those times where I'm not sure if I got the best I could have got and I'd love to learn whatever I can from the POTN knowledge base. For now I think I will go back and try some of the masked ideas from bacchanal.

Thanks

[tzalman]

A few minutes ago I wrote a comment in another thread asking about AEB. This is exactly the sort of situation I was referring to, where bracketing would have at least given you the chance to try to see what you could have done with a version with better highlights. I believe that (since I see you were using ISO 200) you could have lightened shadows and mid-tones without paying too great a penalty and/or used a bit of NR restricted by masking to the dark tones.

[TheSteveMadden]

I shoot a lot of professional sports (well... T-ball anyway :)) and sometimes you have to blow some skin highlights in order to get enough exposure on important parts of the image such as facial expressions. The exposure on these is not objectionably blown IMO, but could probably use a little warming up as the color temp is a touch too cool.

When shooting in full sun, I like to drop the contrast one notch which helps control the dynamic range. Other than that, concentrate on capturing the moment and not exposure perfection *** - you've done that VERY well, congrats.