Overexposed areas? Clarity?

Hi POTN,

I have some overexposed areas on a few shots of mine. Like the sky. A makeshift ND filter in lightroom isn't really doing much. And I had a polarizer on my lens. Lens is a 24-70 f/2.8 L (mark 1). I have a few demo walk-around shots I can show you guys as an example.

I'm also looking to increase the "clarity" of my shots. I don't like taking HDR shots, so I avoid that when I can, but I also like getting a overall good exposure. Might just be the way I'm shooting.

Advice?

Post an example or two.

Get familiar with the adjustment brush. Use it to clean up the selected areas, reducing exposure and highlights, and maybe increasing saturation if necessary. If you burn down very overexposed areas, often it'll show as grayish instead of the full normal color.

Advanced:
Use multiple adjustment applications of the adjustment brush to increase the effect in selective areas.
Add color to the adjustment brush (or to a new one) to improve, increase, or change the color in selected areas. Sometimes you have to choose a color that's quite different than your desired end result; when the color stacks with what's already there you often get unexpected results.


For increased clarity, you'll use the Contrast, Clarity, and Vibrance sliders, as well as a little bit of the Sharpening spiders. You can also adjust the white and black points using the whites/blacks sliders. However, there's no substitute for a good original shot: Proper exposure, proper focus/DOF, and (perhaps most importantly) appropriate lighting.

Are you looking for advice for shooting, processing, or both?

Are you shooting Raw or jpeg? (Raw is preferable)

In Lightroom, if you press the Alt/Opt key while moving the Exposure slider you can see if there are parts of the shot that are "overblown" (they light up). If not, try sliding the Highlights slider all the way back to -100 and see if that helps!

Processing, mainly. I have a good base photo to start with. I shoot raw pretty much exclusively.

This is one photo I took. I was hoping to make the clouds pop a lot more than they do in the photo. The sky was pretty much completely blown out, but I got everything else the way I wanted it. I'm really against making the image into an HDR, however. Perhaps I should go back in and tone down a lot of the vignetting as well.

Anyway. Any advice?

On a 7D - use Magic Lantern and DualISO to not blow out the highlights. You can effectively increase the DR. Discussion started here: https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1333150

The only other option is to reduce the exposure and deal with shadow noise.

BTW Magic Lantern also has a raw histogram so you can tell accurately if the raw data is indeed clipped or not.

ejenner wrote in post #16344743
On a 7D - use Magic Lantern and DualISO to not blow out the highlights. You can effectively increase the DR. Discussion started here: https://photography-on-the.net …/showthread.php​?t=1333150

The only other option is to reduce the exposure and deal with shadow noise.

BTW Magic Lantern also has a raw histogram so you can tell accurately if the raw data is indeed clipped or not.

I'm a little afraid of ML on the 7D--is it stable?

quadwing wrote in post #16344754
I'm a little afraid of ML on the 7D--is it stable?

I use it. IMO the ML team is awesome, I use the nightly builds for my 5DII which I update once a month or so. Lot's of people are using it on their 7D's, check out the ML forums. I use the video functions to assist with focusing too.

Realize though that the forums have quite a few people on them that cannot follow instructions and/or bother to read them. With that said I would say the hardest thing about installing and using ML on the 7D is to read the instructions for the 'raw video' version carefully and follow them precisely. If you are not good at following instructions, it might not be for you until they release a 'full version'. It does require some effort in terms of reading to get the most out of it. There is a thread on DualISO from which you can download software you need to process the DualISO raw files.

Usually if something does wrong, taking the battery out and restarting solves it. I did mess up and put the wrong version (the 5D version) on my 7D CF card and the 7D wouldn't turn on, but pulling the battery and putting the correct version on the card solved that issue. So it's not like making one mistake is going to damage your camera. Since then I've not had any 'blips' or weirdness at all. The only thing to be aware of is that pulling the CF card too soon after opening the CF card door can result in battery drain (it's documented in the overall ML instructions).

Personally I wouldn't be without it, but just like the ML team, I'm not going to send you a new camera if you mess up.

Of course another way of dealing with the above shot would be to use a NDgrad filter, but that might not work that well with the buildings.

EDIT: I think the 'normal' unified version works on the T1i (http://www.magiclanter​n.fm/forum/index.php?t​opic=1583.0). I never put it on by T1i, but you could start with that (you won't have DualISO though) and at least get a feel for how it works without 'risking' the 7D. I would update the T1i to a nightly build if you go that route and then once you are comfortable with that, try installing the 7D Alpha2 'raw' version (http://www.magiclanter​n.fm/forum/index.php?t​opic=7464.0) on the 7D.

If you post a link to the uploaded Raw file we can take a whack at it!

Try this site (it used to be YouSendIt.com):

https://www.hightail.c​om/

First, be very careful when handling the spiders - test them first to see if they are poisonous by putting one under your sister/gf/partner's pillow.

You can layer Clarity with multiple Grad or Radial Filters or brush applications. However, be aware that too much Clarity can cause haloing and other artifacts as well as some very unnatural looking edges. In extreme cases multiple applications can even cause clipping although it is nominally masked to confine it to the mid-tones.

You might consider installing the Topaz Clarity plugin, which has been described as "clarity on steroids".

with digital for landscapes use tripod and bracket the shots. you can then digitally blend them
in photoshop i.e you take the highlights of underexposed shots and shadows of overexposed
shots. even if you do not have photoshop there is no harm not to use tripod and bracket the shots.
processing skills keeps on improving so may be within year or two when you have good grip on
post processing you definitely can process those pictures to your satisfaction.

Oh right, I forgot people have Lightroom 5 now. I'm still stuck with 4.

nittaya wrote in post #16345268
with digital for landscapes use tripod and bracket the shots. you can then digitally blend them
in photoshop i.e you take the highlights of underexposed shots and shadows of overexposed
shots. even if you do not have photoshop there is no harm not to use tripod and bracket the shots.
processing skills keeps on improving so may be within year or two when you have good grip on
post processing you definitely can process those pictures to your satisfaction.

I'm not exactly sure how HDR works--I have a few HDR photos that I've processed in Photomatix, but they look terrible and I don't like the look of it at all.

I just really want something natural, where there's detail in the clouds, detail in the shadows, and detail in the mids. I'm careful with clarity--I don't pull it up more than +10 or -10 typically speaking.

If you can post the raw file, I might try using DPP++. Usually I get more natural results than HDR.

quadwing wrote in post #16345615
I'm not exactly sure how HDR works--I have a few HDR photos that I've processed in Photomatix, but they look terrible and I don't like the look of it at all.

I just really want something natural, where there's detail in the clouds, detail in the shadows, and detail in the mids. I'm careful with clarity--I don't pull it up more than +10 or -10 typically speaking.

i also like scene to look natural that is why i mentioned digital blending . with digital
blending you get natural look.here is one digitally blended shot. it is digital blend
of 3 shots exposers -1,0,+1.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-c-a.akamaihd.net …299001877_40654​6106_o.jpg

For above scene (even though it looks of low dynamic range) you cannot get satisfactory result if you take a single shot.
digital blending is very common now a days for landscapes.

even if you do not know how to do it. make a habit of shooting RAW and bracketing the shots especially of
those scenes which are very nice and beautiful. After a year or two your post processing skill will improve
significantly , you can then process those shots.