Fixing overexposure in photoshop?

T

TheOrteganator

New Member
My dad owns and runs a photography business. We recently did our first job with a digital camera, and one of the settings was messed up. The subject of the picture (person(s)) is washed out and overexposed in some of them. Is there a feature in photoshop that will allow me to try and fix the subject of the photo, but leave the background alone. The background is perfect color and brightness, but the people are sometimes washed out and the color is very poor. I want some way to fix the person, but leave the background alone. Thanks.

Also, I have Photoshop CS2, if that makes a difference.
 
well, there are a a few different ways to go about it.

One would be to select the person(s) with one of the lasso tools, and then play with some of the color settings (the ones in Image > Adjustments > Color Balance, Replace Color, or Brightness & Contrast etc.). It's hard to say exactly, as I never use just one tool or technique to fix my photos. The best advice I can give without seeing the picture would be to play with those settings, just try to get it right.
 
I'll post an example a bit later.

Here's two like the ones that need to be fixed. The problem is that these are pictures of a league with 500+ kids. Retaking the nearly half that were messed up needs to be avoided if possible.

DSC_0045.jpg

DSC_0067.jpg
 
Last edited:
ok, so here's the deal: You can't really do anything to those pictures. The skin has no contrast or texture for PS to work it's effects on (In particular #1). I tried just about everything I know of... You could make it look a little better, but it would be a major pain to do it on more than a few pictures. Sorry man.
 
I hate to say it, but I'm here to second what Starwarsman said. As you can see the over-exposed areas are just white. There's unfortunetly nothing left to fix... Unless the area in question has some detail left, you're pretty much out of luck.
 
there is no detail in overexposed areas. Very tough to fix, if at all. If you shot in RAW, you could fix it.
Dark background requires a change in your metering mode. Interesting enough tho, it is set on Center weight, should have been fine.
Pretty long exposure for that shutter speed using a flash.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top