fixing blown out highlights

[jetcode]

I know there must be a few strategies that exist for fixing blown out highlights. Do you have any strategies that work for you? I know there must be a way to blend in texture from another part of the image but I haven't yeat realized the way to do this.

Thanks in advance,
Joe

[Ben Syverson]

How blown out are the highlights? I'm assuming this is E6, not C41? Are there many areas of zero information, or is it just the sky?

I've written software specifically to fix blown out skies for video, and could probably translate that into a Photoshop technique...

[jetcode]

IMO blown out means there is no detail in the given area which could equally be shadows or highlights. Most often however I have E6 with blown out highlights and I want to map texture from surrounding areas back into that space and balance it using opacity and any other potential techniques.

[Deane Johnson]

Would cloning in Photoshop work? Would it be considered legitimate?

[Ben Syverson]

It all depends on what you're blowing out. Once you lose information, it's gone. But if you're dealing with a homogenous area (like a sky) there are some possibilities...

Do you have any examples you can post?

[Harley Goldman]

Try the cloning tool at 15-20% opacity. Select a target that is quite similar in color and or texture and lightly clone in with a soft edge brush. It does not take much to take away the blown highlight look.

[Kirk Gittings]

How blown is blown? Adding a curve to a highlight luminosity mask can pull in some detail if there is any there. Sometimes I also make a highlight selection and add a touch of noise to the area, which helps bring the tone down a hair in a print. It works best on small areas that are blown.

[Donald Miller]

Cloning and luminosity masking both can work in certain cases. Saturation masking can be used too.

http://goodlight.us/writing/saturati...satmask-1.html

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tu...-clipped.shtml

Good luck.

[jetcode]

Lots of good answers. I have some images that need to be corrected and in general I want to acquire the techniques to do that.

Thanks again ... Joe

[Bill_1856]

Printing the image with just a touch of color (gray, sepia, etc) will mask the offending bright spot.