Over-exposed

Shadow/Highlight
by: Rick

Hi Alex. I'm glad you had success with my tutorial for underexposed photos.

I would argue that you DO know what your doing! You now know that you can lighten an underexposed photo by duplicating the background layer and changing the blend mode to Screen, which gives you the desired results.

Most people don't understand why blend modes work. Adobe describes Screen mode as looking at the color information of each individual RGB channel and using that to multiply the inverse of the blend and base colors. Well who would understand that!? I know I don't.

But we do know that it results in a lighter photo, which is what we want.

OK, on to your question. It really helps that you sent an example of what your dealing with.

It's a common problem when you shoot outdoors. Your camera looks at the light and determines the way to expose the shot. In your example it probably saw the bright sky and background and decided it needed to expose it as fast as possible. Unfortunately the subjects in the foreground, which is the most important part of your image didn't get enough exposure to adequately see them.

Photoshop Elements has a great adjustment tool for improving this situation. It's called Shadow/Highlight and it's really easy to use.
From the Enhance menu choose Adjust Lighting > Shadow/Highlights. Then just drag the sliders until you like what you see.

Lighten Shadows will brighten the shadow areas so you can see more of the captured detail.

Darken Highlights will darken the bright areas of your photo and reveal more of the captured detail. In your sample photo it looks like the sky might be completely blown out in which case you wont see a change there. But you never know until you try. I'm amazed at how much detail is in there hiding sometimes. You might also consider stealing the sky from another photo. See my Replace the Sky tutorial for how to do that.

The Midtone Contrast slider increases or reduces the contrast in the middle tones. Just play with it to see if you can improve it any. A lot of times I don't even change the Midtone Contrast.
Once you get it looking the way you like it just click OK and you're done.

Please send a photo of the corrected version so we can see the results.

Thanks again for the question Alex and to all others go ahead and submit your own question by going to the link below and I will do my best to answer it.

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Submitted by: Rick

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Hi Alex. I'm glad you had success with my tutorial for <a href="http://www.essential-photoshop-elements.com/underexposed-photos.html">underexposed photos.</a> I would argue that you <strong>DO</strong> know what your doing! You now know that you can lighten an underexposed photo by duplicating the background layer and changing the blend mode to Screen, which gives you the desired results. Most people don't understand why blend modes work. Adobe describes Screen mode as looking at the color information of each individual RGB channel and using that to multiply the inverse of the blend and base colors. Well who would understand that!? I know I don't. But we do know that it results in a lighter photo, which is what we want. OK, on to your question. It really helps that you sent an example of what your dealing with. It's a common problem when you shoot outdoors. Your camera looks at the light and determines the way to expose the shot. In your example it probably saw the bright sky and background and decided it needed to expose it as fast as possible. Unfortunately the subjects in the foreground, which is the most important part of your image didn't get enough exposure to adequately see them. Photoshop Elements has a great adjustment tool for improving this situation. It's called Shadow/Highlight and it's really easy to use. From the Enhance menu choose Adjust Lighting > Shadow/Highlights. Then just drag the sliders until you like what you see. Lighten Shadows will brighten the shadow areas so you can see more of the captured detail. Darken Highlights will darken the bright areas of your photo and reveal more of the captured detail. In your sample photo it looks like the sky might be completely blown out in which case you wont see a change there. But you never know until you try. I'm amazed at how much detail is in there hiding sometimes. You might also consider stealing the sky from another photo. See my <a href="http://www.essential-photoshop-elements.com/replace-the-sky.html">Replace the Sky</a> tutorial for how to do that. The Midtone Contrast slider increases or reduces the contrast in the middle tones. Just play with it to see if you can improve it any. A lot of times I don't even change the Midtone Contrast. Once you get it looking the way you like it just click OK and you're done. Please send a photo of the corrected version so we can see the results. Thanks again for the question Alex and to all others go ahead and submit your own question by going to the link below and I will do my best to answer it.

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