"Contrast Control" Tutorial, (sort of)

[PhotosGuy]

I suspect that the luminous-landscape one is better, but this is the one I used &, if nothing else, it will serve as a bad example! :lol:

So, you've got an image of a polished aluminum aircraft in the bright sunlight, & half the pic is blown out.
I started with this Tut: Adjustment layer basics (http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/tutorials/adjlayerbasics/)

Another way to do it is on:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/understanding-series/u-contrast-masking.shtml
This one says, "# Use Gaussian Blur to reduce resolution degradation of the image by the mask, yet at the same time avoid halos on sharp contrast boundaries such as skylines. (Filter / Blur / Gaussian Blur). Low amounts are usually best."
Well, I read that after I processed the pic using the first Tut, & you can see the halo around the prop & top of the cowling. In 'Step 4', I used a 10 pixel radius for the blur, & should have noticed that!

Here's a look at the two different exposures extracted from RAW. If I remember correctly, The 'under' one was -2.0 & the 'over' one was +0.5. Getting 'over' was easy, so I used the pilots head as a guide to set the exposure.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/PhotosGuy/Forum%20Junk/P-47_comp_0325.jpg

The final image:
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v218/PhotosGuy/Air%20Show%202004/P-47_0325.jpg

Not perfect, but better than what I had.

A gallery of two pages of pics here:
http://img72.photobucket.com/albums/v218/PhotosGuy/Air%20Show%202004/

The first post of the "$2,000,000 Lawn Mower! (Air Show)" (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=39611), pics is here, with pic info, etc.

UPDATED 11/4/04
In ran across "Adobe digital photography white papers and primers" at:
http://www.adobe.com/digitalimag/ps_pro_primers.html

The "Highlight Recovery in Adobe Camera Raw" on that page gives a much more detailed tutorial on contrast control using a different method of selecting the highlites. This is a 'must read'.
by Jeff Schewe
"The best digital cameras have about the same dynamic range as transparency film, but with Adobe Camera Raw you can actually process your raw images to pull out more highlight detail than you may have thought possible."

EDIT 3/21/05: I found another one. It's a lot easier & seems to bring details of darker pics as well as have applications to blown pics, too. If I remember right, you'd use Screen Mode for the overexposed ones. Any way, have fun. You'll learn something either way! ;)
Blend modes for Contrast Masking:
http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/contrast_masking.shtml

More on Blend Modes:
Photoshop's Five Essential Blend Modes For Photo Editing (http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photo-editing/layer-blend-modes/)

[Scottes]

This is the third time in a week that someone has fixed a photo doing this type of thing. Something's telling me that I have to go back and fix a couple of old waterfall pics with similar problems. I gave up on them a long time ago, but 3 times in a week....

Thanks Frank. I've got to check this out.

[slejhamer]

Excellent example Frank.

Here is a link to a PS action that makes much of the work automatic, as long as you have your two exposures open:
http://www.outdooreyes.com/photo80.php3

[PhotosGuy]

Thanks for the link, slejhamer. I'll give it a try.
This whole process didn't take very long to do, but if a person has a lot of blown images. it will come in handy! :wink:

[Pekka]

Another way is to convert two exposures from RAW and use clone tool to move data from "highlight-saved" to normal exposure" image, working only on the areas where highlights were blown on normal exposure. This is very easy and no masks are needed.

[PhotosGuy]

move data from "highlight-saved" to normal exposure"

Do you mean "highlight-saved" as in save a History & paint with the History Brush?
Please tell us more, Pekka!

[edmund]

how do you make sure when you are cloning from one image to another that you start 'painting in' at the exact same spot? do you zoom in to 300% or is there some 'trick' to make sure you get it right? I really like your idea .... but could you fill in a couple of steps, please.

[Pekka]

Develop normal exposure version (A).
Develop version which has highlights saved (B)

When you have them open in PS, ALT-click with clone (stamp) tool anywhere in photo B. See you coordinates from info toolbox.

Click photo A in exactly the same coordinates and now you have "locked" the clone tool between shots.

You can freely paint stuff from photo B to photo A, namely areas which need highlight saving - you can use all the facilities of the tool (transparency, brush size etc). You can also you history tool to revert back.

I have used this technique in photo below to paint a "better exposure of an explosion" from a picture taken 1 second apart, only the top right part (one treetop, explosion) is transferred.

http://photography-on-the.net/stuff/HV8O0192_1b.jpg

This shot was one of the hardest I've been ever asked to do, as there was no rehearsal and exact timing and brightness of explosions was unknown - it was quite dark so I knew I could not hold all the dynamic range so this way I could get good detail to explosion and have good low noise version of the rest of the shot.

[PhotosGuy]

That's interesting! I've never considered cloning from one pic to another.
Is there an advantage to doing it that way?

I would have just dragged one pic into the other, saved a history, painted in the details & deleted the other pic layer.
Of course, that's one of the great things about PS. There are often several ways to get the same end result!

[tommykjensen]

There is also a dynamic range plugin from Fred Miranda that can do it all automated given the 2 images. Its called DRI Pro.

[PhotosGuy]

I found a Adobe Whitepaper page which gives a much more detailed tutorial.
See the UPDATED 11/4/04 info in the original post.

[PhotosGuy]

More on LAYER MASKS:
This isn't as good as using two different exposures, but a Layer Mask is fast & easily reversible. Give it a try on an old shot: Airport runway shoot (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=117950)

More Layer help: Layers, Layers, Layers (http://nickyguides.digital-digest.com/adobe/layers.htm)

Layer Masks - What the Thumbnails mean (http://www.heathrowe.com/tuts/layerthumbs.asp)

Layer mask in Elements 4.0
http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=237985

Adjustment layer basics
http://www.adobe.com/designcenter/tutorials/adjlayerbasics/

About layer and vector masks (http://livedocs.adobe.com/en_US/Photoshop/10.0/help.html?content=WSfd1234e1c4b69f30ea53e41001031a b64-7866.html)

LM in Elements & other uses (http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/search/index.cfm?loc=en_us&term=Layer+Mask)

Selecting areas in PS. (http://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthread.php?t=39994)