How about a Camera Raw image

[Steve]

I'll bet there are a lot of people that never use ACR, Adobe Camera Raw file editor.
Here's an image to play with.
It's overexposed but easily fixed in ACR.

Make sure Shadow Clipping Warning and the Highlights Clipping warning is turned on.
To check, slide the Exposure slider all the way down then all the way up.

Areas that are purple with the slider down are clipped shadows (not much in this image)
Areas that are red with the slider all the way up are clipped highlights.

If the warnings are off you can turn them on by clicking on the little triangles to the top left and right of the Histogram,

Recenter the Exposure slider and play with the all the sliders to fix the clipped areas and improve the image.
Adjust the image, use all the tools.
I converted this file to a DNG file so most versions of Photoshop and PS Elements should be able to open it.
Have fun and post what you've done.

 

[MikeMc]

Great Idea Steve ! I learned to "double process" using ACR then running it through PS .

Is this allowed here, or just single process using ACR only ? As I shoot in RAW i need both to save my grits many times !

 

[Steve]

No, do whatever you want.
I'm guessing that many non photographers and photographers that shoot only JPG never use ACR and I thought it would be fun for them to try.

If you DO shoot RAW you will always open the image in ACR first then to PS.
You can also open JPG's in ACR which I always do.
Much less control than opening a raw file but still extremely useful.

 

[Tom Mann]

Here's a series of steps that take Steve's file from the initial version in which many areas are either blown or at least very hot to a colorful version in which only the white tent remains blown, but most other areas are well controlled. My final version may be a bit over-processed / HDR-like / cartoonish for some tastes, but I wanted to show a significant range of processing.

To concentrate on the critical part of the image, I cropped it. To avoid the tender mercies of the PSG image uploader / thumbnail generator, I also down-rez'ed each (cropped) version to 650 pixels wide. ;-)

The first attachment is Steve's file as it initially appears in ACR.

The 2nd attachment shows the effect of just one extremely simple change in ACR: I changed the camera profile (in the "Camera Calibration" tab) from "Adobe Standard" to "Camera Faithful". Just this one change by itself significantly reduces the overexposure problem and is starting to tame the very hot areas such as the asphalt, bringing detail into the clouds, etc. This one change -- clicking just one check box in ACR, without even touching the exposure or other sliders in ACR -- is probably enough to satisfy many people.

The 3rd attachment includes the above change in the camera profile used plus some other ACR adjustments to try to bring further detail into the remaining over exposed areas. One of the easiest of these was to simply turn on automatic "Lens Correction" feature of ACR. This automatically fetches the appropriate profile for the lens on Steve's S90, and then applies corrections for geometric distortion, vignetting, and, if you want, chromatic aberration.

The 4th attachment includes all of the previous tweaks in ACR, but I then took the image into PS and used tools such as shadow/highlights and Topaz Adjust to start moving the image in the direction of a sunny, saturated HDR look that may or may not be to everyone's liking.


Cheers,

Tom M

PS - Sometimes the PSG image uploader changes the order of the attachments. If you have a question which is which, just look at the file names - they match the above descriptions.

 

[Paul]

I don't have a paid version of the un zipper so cannot have a go, my trial is up also?

 

[Tom Mann]

Hi Paul - I use 7-zip ( http://www.7-zip.org/ ). It's open source and works extremely well.

Tom

 

[Paul]

Thanks Tom.

 

[Paul]

Processed in raw then played with in shop.

 

[Tom Mann]

Oh, I initially thought Steve wanted us to demonstrate standard photographic "corrections" in ACR, not exercise major artistic license, but what-the-heck, this is fun, too!

T

 

[Paul]

Those B none Photoshop plugs i bet Tom?

 

[Tom Mann]

Yeah, I went into stream-of-consciousness mode, threw the kitchen sink at it, hoped it would land somewhere interesting, and then forgot exactly what I did to get there. ;-).

Seriously, tho, I did use Nik CEP to get the color and vignetting, some brushes in Corel Painter to get some of the texture, an application of NIK glamor glow towards the end to help blend the efx together , border via "canvas size", and a bunch of stuff using regular PS tools like burning and dodging (but I can't remember all of them).

Cheers,

T

 

[MikeMc]

I played with the white balance tool, then used the adj brush and worked a few light areas and a lot of darkness in ACR,Opened in PS, did a quick levels, re did WB and then sharpened it a bit.

 

[Steve]

Here's another one to play with.
It's dark but properly exposed.
Lighten it up or change it anyway you like and remove the highlight and shadow clipping.

 

[Steve]

Here's mine.
I just balanced it out in ACR, nothing in PS.

 

[MikeMc]

finished with a WB in PS levels

 

[ibclare]

You're getting ahead of me, lol. Just came back on. So here's the first one. Did all processing in CR and cropped it in PS. Dropped the exposure, zipped recovery to max, a little fill light, a little black and a bit of clarity. Did some sharpening and masking. Then increased the green and saturation of same, and increased the blue some.



Hmm, just noticed I lost the white of the clouds. Exposure issue?

 

[Tom Mann]

Mine's a bit more warm and HDR-ish. I did two ACR conversions, one for the shadows and one for the highlights and blended them.

 

[MikeMc]

Here is another door ....I never did play with this one...

(Steve....if i'm out of place...please remove)

 

[MikeMc]

Here is another door ....I never did play with this one...

(Steve....if i'm out of place...please remove)

.......

 

[ibclare]

That is a very cool photo Steve. I found the temp kind of hard to balance. Did changes in SCR including color calibrations. I wold like to push the color a bit beyond the norm, not in the direction Tom took it. Something about the eerie setting. Might play with it more just to push that further. In PS I just did a spot level on portions of the plants. And I looked at the image size this time and scaled it down. :mrgreen: