How do you work on little parts of the image?

[JeffreyG]

I like to learn something new. I was setting up to shoot the kids and I took this practice shot to check the histogram. As you can see, there is a sunbeam falling on the face of one child. I shut the blind further and got the picture I wanted but this shot seems like a learning opportunity.

Nothing is blown out, so plausibly I could grab the bright face in a new layer, reduce the brightness on it and then flatten the layers and have a fixed shot.

The problem is, whever I make adjustments to only one piece of a picture in a layer and flatten, I can see a hard line between the two regions.

I suppose in some ways this is like adding a false sky to a shot.....how do you mask the border between the two areas?

Thanks for any help....I'm pretty much a PP novice.

[eddarr]

I would do two things if you are using a levels layer adjustment. Start with a soft edge brush at 100% opacity and paint about 90% of the area you want to adjust. Then lower the opacity to around 30% and go over the remaining area multiple times to blend them together.

[freebird]

Try feathering your selection and see if that helps rid hard edge. Learn quick mask on bottom of tool palet. It works nicely too.

[JeffreyG]

Thanks for the help both of you. I was totally ignorant on the feathering, and your suggestions worked.

Next problem is that after I adjust the exposure of the one face it is a real bugger to get it color balanced. It just gets this wierd orange cast.

Anyway....here is the best I've gotten to so far.

[Bumgardnern]

I would go in and create a new layer with a curve to bring down the lighlights. Then I would create a mask and brush them back in at like 50% opacity to start with and then adjust accordingly.

[Lowner]

A cheat for any blown highlight is to paint in a suitable colour on a layer beneath the image and either adjust the opacity of the area of concern or choose "darken in the layers palette. A bit of work with the eraser and the jobs done.

I'm not suggesting that your highlights here are blown, but it might be useful in future.

Richard

[Keith R]

Why not a quick dabble with the Burn brush?

[Bumgardnern]

The burn and dodge tools are destructive edits and I would suggest against them. The best way to burn and dodge is with a layer of medium grey... or atleast thats what i was told. I could be wrong.

[philmar]

I have never been able to use the burn brush to my satisfaction. I find it just adds ugly shades of dirty grey

[Fabrian]

I find the easiest way to start out in a "fun" way is in Photoshop:

ctrl+j - copies background
click "new layer"
set mode for that layer to "opacity"
edit->fill->50% grey
set tool to brush
set desired brush size
set opacity up top by the tool options (not for the layer in the palette) to about 25%
use the "X" button to switch from lighten or darken.

Hope that made sense.

[Alexajlex]

One other option to try is the paint with light action from atncentral.com