Editing Raw Image to Show Detail in White Fur

Re the attached photo of 'Spencer'the cat - the original raw image (shotin daylight at 800 ISO) had burnt out whites - during conversion of the image I reduced the exposure level until detail appeared in the white areas of fur (almost all anyway!) - although the remaining areas wre then far too dark. In PS CS2 - Image/Adjustment/Shado​w/ Highlights I lightened the darkened areas and the result is attached.

Is this the correct procedure for retaining highlight detail?

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Yes.

I'll go into a little more detail for what I've found works well in this type of situation. Adjust Highlights first, setting Shadows to 0%. Drop the Radius to quite small, 1-3 pixels. Try Range at 60, but be prepared to move it. Then adjust the Amount, watching to make sure that you don't turn too much too gray.

Ideally, if shot in RAW, get RSP from pixmantec.com, which has some nice Highlights recovery capabilities. The combo of RSP and CS2 S&H works wonders.


Again, though, blown out is blown out, and you can't recover detail that just isn't there. You could clone fur from one part of the cat to the blown-out parts, just be careful to get the fur going in the correct direction. Highlight an area, then copy, paste, edit, transform, rotate if you need to get the hair in a different direction.

I think I would convert the RAW file twice: Once for the white erea's, once for the total, and then use PS layers / masks to blend them into one image. That way you don't get so much noise from 'pulling up' the 'shadows' in an 8 bit file. In the original they are 12 bit, and not 'shadows' but midtones.

Agreed. That is exactly what RAW is for. To provide as much data as possible throughout the spectrum. One caveat, though. On the originally posted shot, it looks like the shot is overexposed and white balance is too much toward the cyan.

MAKE SURE that the white balance and all other parameters that would affect the color of the shot are identical in the two saves. It would be difficult to get it to look natural if you didn't.

Rad

Many thanks indeed to Scottes, René and Radtech1 for the VERY helpful comments. This is just the sort of advice that I need and which one is lucky enough to find available on this forum from more knowlegeable members.