Overexposed areas, blown hightlights, not sure how to call this

[Fastfwd13]

I changed to setup on my 50D to "blink" overexposed areas and I had a few of them on a pic of my kid gliding down a metal slide where the sun reflected. Also got them all over a white tent when shooting a music band underneath.

The pics still look good to me.

What do you usually do with those? Shoot with exposure compensation down or take metering elewhere and then ad "light" to the shadows in PP or just leave as is? HDR? Other techniques?

[timnosenzo]

I usually only worry about blown out highlights if they're on the photographs main subject. For instance, if I'm taking a picture of a person, and the camera is showing that highlights on their face are blown out, I would probably adjust the exposure and try again. But if some meaningless detail is blown out while my main subject is properly exposed, then I'm OK with it.

[oaktree]

A large part of Michael Freeman's book "Perfect Exposure" is on blown highlights/washed out whites: How to avoid them or, if they can't be avoided, how to handle them. The main thing to remember is that large washed out white area will dominate your photo (unless its the effect you want).

So what Freeman suggests is to first determine what is the main subject of the photo. Then, try to place the main subject's brightness at 50% (or the brightness of a 18% grey card). Since I don't carry a grey card, I chimp to see if the main subject's exposure is about right.

If there is a large washed out area in the frame, re-frame by lens or foot zooming to get the area out of the frame or greatly reduced. This is basically the suggestion to "get closer to your subject!

If there is still "too much" washed out area, you then have to decide to reduce the exposure (thus, darkening your main subject) or keep it as is and live with it. If the washed out area is a plain white wall, you may just decide to live with it. However, if the white area is a delicate lace curtain, you may want to reduce the exposure to at least see some of the detail. You could decide to use a fill in flash to get more light on your main subject while reducing the exposure on the lace curtain.

Freeman's book is a bit technical and he tries to divide photographic situation in about a dozen "flow charts". But, I found it useful in making me realize that I should pay attention to the range of brightness in a shot. At least now when I look at a scene, I'm aware of possible washed out areas and can then decide what to do with them.

[neilwood32]

Unless the washed out areas are affecting the visual effect you are trying to achieve, then ignore them.

Spectral highlights are to be expected sometimes and can actually improve a photo. The issue is knowing when to allow them, minimise them and when to avoid them altogether.

I think the main thing is to make sure your subject is properly exposed and, if shooting RAW, then bring them down in PP.

[number six]

I changed to setup on my 50D to "blink" overexposed areas and I had a few of them on a pic of my kid gliding down a metal slide where the sun reflected. Also got them all over a white tent when shooting a music band underneath.

The pics still look good to me.

There you go. Sun reflections are called "specular highlights" - very often you want these to be blown (RGB 255,255,255) to look right. They were probably blown to your naked eye, too. Same thing with a white tent or snow with no detail to begin with - so there's no detail to lose.


What do you usually do with those? Shoot with exposure compensation down or take metering elewhere and then ad "light" to the shadows in PP or just leave as is? HDR? Other techniques?

What do I do with them? I set exposure so specular highlights and whites with no detail are blown. In other words, I adjust to get what you already have to begin with. Most of the time that gives the look I want.

-js

[RDKirk]

Not all sun highlights are "specular" highlights, and you do want to be careful about letting even detail-free whites blow out too much above the actual top of your sensor's range. You can get some uncorrectable color imbalances when that happens.

Keep a true "white" only barely at the point that it "blinks" if you're shooting JPEG and no more than 1/3 stop above that point if you're shooting raw.