Backlighting correction help

[tumble]

Well I was out for a walk yesterday enjoying the warm sunshine along by the river when I came across this old tree root stump that had fell on it's side and looked like an interesting photo for me.

Luckily I had the camera with me as I was trying out the Canon 28-135mm IS I just got and snapped a couple of shots.

This is the best but the hazy sunshine caused me a few problems. I'm new to DSLR (was always a P&S cameraman before) so I'm still learning. I think I should have used a fill in flash on the tree stump so the background wasn't overexposed. Didn't have my flash with me anyway, but I think that's what I should have done.

Any ideas how I should go about correcting it in Photoshop CS?

http://www.pbase.com/image/28720941



thanks in advance

[maderito]

I think I have the same kind of problem when I'm walking around. I spot something interesting and decide to make what I see into a photo. Afterwards, I have to often ask myself - so what exactly was interesting?

You've correctly diagnosed the problem (large dynamic range and blown highlights). I'm not sure you would "solve" the problem by bringing a flash to the scene. Technically you are correct - you would achieve a more balanced exposure.

It is a very interesting tree stump! The challenge is to make it an interesting photo. You could shoot again under different lighting from a different perspective ... or working from what you have, you could crop first, eliminating much of the sky, and then work on color and tonality with PS adjustments.

Good luck. :)

[meow]

I don't use PS but I'm sure there is a way. Create a density mask and work from there.

This sucks because I wasn't careful and I destroyed the JPG and above all I suck at editing. Hope it's closer to what you REALLY saw and illustrates what I mean anyway. :P

http://ababa.net/stuff/root.jpg

[john_houghton]

Did you shoot in RAW mode? If you did, you may be able to recover more highlight detail with the conversion options. Did you review the image to check for blown highlights at the time of taking the photo? The histogram and flashing highlights will alert you to this problem and help you avoid trouble like this. You should perhaps have used the AEB feature to capture differently exposed images that could be merged in Photoshop to give both good shadows and good highlights.

John

[dn7elson]

Any ideas how I should go about correcting it in Photoshop CS?

http://www.pbase.com/image/28720941


Is this what you are looking for?
http://www.pbase.com/image/28744873/large.jpg

I just used the magnetic lasso tool, outlined the stump, removed the holes from the selection, made adjustments to brightness and contrast; did an inverse selection and made similar adjustments to the background.

Using fill flash would have reduced the problem initially.