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/saturationmasks/satmask-1.html

http://www.luminous-landscape.com/tutorials/restore-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.

[jetcode]

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

I have used that technique in some of my images but that will not pass in a gallery when printed large enough to notice.

[Don Hutton]

I have used that technique in some of my images but that will not pass in a gallery when printed large enough to notice.
Probably a very good indicator that images with those kinds of obvious technical defects should not be up in galleries...

[Ben Syverson]

Joe, is this a general question, or do you have a specific image you're working on? If it's a specific image, it would help to know where you're blowing out detail... Are we talking about a chrome motorcycle? A sky? A face? A field of wheat? Your options will vary based on the nature of the information loss.

If this is for a customer, I would inform them about the limits of E6, send them the blown out file, and not lose any sleep over it. If it's for your personal work, you might want to bite the bullet and reshoot the image (maybe with C41 if it's an extremely contrasty subject).

[jetcode]

I see some E6 images with blown out highlights that I would not publish. Definitely chrome highlights will be blown out and that's a good thing.

I am thinking of landscape images where the dynamic range and exposure render the highest exposed surfaces without texture. That is the nature of this question.

[Kirk Gittings]

I see some E6 images with blown out highlights that I would not publish. Definitely chrome highlights will be blown out and that's a good thing.


Joe, you must be tired. This makes no sense to me. Chromes are E6 in my world.

[jetcode]

Joe, you must be tired. This makes no sense to me. Chromes are E6 in my world.

I thought the person was referring to chrome as in fenders on a motorcycle. Shooting a motorcycle or any subject that features chrome (not the film) will have blown out highlights given enough light to illuminate the subject.

[Kirk Gittings]

I get it, maybe I'm the one who's tired.

[Ben Syverson]

I assume he meant that's NOT a good thing. [edit: whoops! I responded too late. nevermind]

Either way, if the problem is across the entire exposure—that is, if you're blowing out ALL your highlights—then obviously the problem is with how you're determining your exposure. You definitely want to make highlight protection your main priority in E6.

If it's only small details that are overexposed, you may be worrying too much.

It's hard to tell, because unless we can see an example image, or get more information beyond "the highest exposed surfaces [are] without texture," the question remains vague.

If we're talking about the tip of a wave being blown out, or part of a reflection in a pond, then you shouldn't fear pure white. I think it's okay to let the extreme "tips" of your image go to pure white and black. It can make your images a little more punchy.

My problem with pure white is when it sneaks into enough areas that it's distracting. Unless that's what you want, it's simply a wrong exposure. No Photoshop technique can (or should) rescue a botched image.

[David Luttmann]

Joe,

Are all three color channels blown? If only one or two channels are blown, you can always attempt to reconstruct the missing data based upon the 1 or 2 channels you have left.

[Deliberate1]

I have used the shadow/highlight tool in CS2 "adjustments" with very good results.

[John Bowen]

Probably a very good indicator that images with those kinds of obvious technical defects should not be up in galleries...

LOL

[RichardRitter]

Trash can best tool in the dark room or next to the light table. Gives you a reason to go back and do it better.

[jetcode]

Trash can best tool in the dark room or next to the light table. Gives you a reason to go back and do it better.

Is it better to develop the skill necessary to produce art from the given or chuck everything that can't be easily printed? The reason I ask is because as I understand it there are several valuable pieces on the marketplace made from negatives few could ever print.

[Jeffrey Sipress]

Harley put it best. The fix is simple, but requires aat least some experience in image editing.

Often an image is exposed as properly as it can be, yet the scene still exceeds the range of the capturing medium. The blown out area may be small and quite fixable. I often make images, both with film and sensors, where I know a part will be blown or go full black, but the rest of the image is perfect. I make a mental note to accept it and fix it later. I usually succeed.

[Lenny Eiger]

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

If there is really nothing on the neg, there there is nothing you can do, except simulate. If there is something there on the neg you can use a scanner with higher capabilities. You can bring it over....

Lenny

[Ben Syverson]

Every image is different... Your ability to save the image will depend on how much damage has taken place.

[David_Senesac]

Any film that has significant blown out highlights cannot be fixed without manipulating the image by adding, creating, or cloning into the blown out areas. In other words, once something has no data there is no way to recover reality without manipulation. I'm sure you already know that so must be asking how one might replace lack of features with realistic feature. And as some have stated, that all depends on what it is that is blown out. If it is a tiny element of an image like a small distant snowfield, adding information probably will not matter. However one will likely want to reduce the luminance from say 255-255-255 down to something more mellow so it isn't distracting. Several ways in PS to do that easily. A more common situation is larger areas of snow or bright rock like granite. Stuff that immediately goes into the trash from the first look on my light table.

But if someone wanted to manipulate the blown out elements, and they had the skill and patience to replace those areas with something that didn't look phony, it certainly could end up passable in some circumstances. With enough effort and time if the blown out areas are well isolated like one big rock, it is certainly possible one might clone in well exposed rock areas from another totally different image under similar light conditions and distance and create a realistic enough look that people could not tell. With some subjects the blown out areas are distributed through the film mixed in with areas that are not blown out. Like a bunch of leaves with some leaf areas bright yet exposed barely ok but others blocked up too bright. Trying to fix such highlights is essentially hopeless. Same thing with a rocky landscape where 90% of the scene is simply bright but not blown out with maybe 10% blocked up spread out all over the image in areas of just a few pixels to hundreds.

Another major issue is if one is working with large format with the intention of large prints, the repair required to create high realistic detail believably is likely to be difficult. Thus it may be easy to scan large format film and doctor blown out highlights if one's intention is just to post a puny sized image on the web but most difficult if one 's intent is printing a 30 or 40 inch wide print from a 300mb print file.