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<\/a>OK, so I was scanning images in Lightroom last night and ran across this one.\u00a0 It\u2019s washed out except for the foreground and there is a tremendous amount of highlight clipping in the upper right hand corner.\u00a0 (I wouldn\u2019t blame you if you stopped reading hear and said, \u201cThere\u2019s no way he can do anything with that image.\u00a0 It\u2019s a mess.\u201d\u00a0 Which it is.\u00a0 But humor me and read on.)<\/p>\nBy the way, you can click on the images to see them in a larger format.<\/p>\n
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Don\u2019t believe me?\u00a0 Well here\u2019s the image as it looks in Lightroom with the highlight clipping turned on.\u00a0 (See the triangle that is circled in the upper right corner of the histogram.)\u00a0 It displays all the clipped highlights in red.<\/p>\n
The first thing I did was use the Exposure adjustment to decrease the overall exposure.\u00a0 The reason is to see if the blown highlights can be recovered.\u00a0 By decreasing Exposure you get pretty much the same effect as decreasing exposure in your camera.\u00a0 Everything gets darker.\u00a0 I decreased it a lot, over 2 1\/2 stops (-2.62 to be exact).\u00a0 That\u2019s like stopping your lens down 2 2\/3 stops.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Can you believe this is the same image we started with?\u00a0 It\u2019s totally transformed.\u00a0 But we\u2019re not done yet.\u00a0 There\u2019s a lot more we can do.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Notice how saturated the colors are and I haven\u2019t even touched the HSL adjustment.\u00a0 I like to work with luminosity (or tonality) first to get the image looking good.\u00a0 If I started out with saturation (as is often what I\u00a0<\/em>want to do) I\u2019d be way out of control by now.\u00a0 In Lightroom, adjusting luminosity has an effect on color saturation (same in Photoshop but at least there you can control it).<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Let\u2019s recap.\u00a0 All of the adjustments right up to the very last were on luminosity \u2013 Exposure, Recovery, Fill Light, Blacks, Brightness and Contrast.\u00a0 And each adjustment addressed the most glaring problem: first the highlight clipping, next the dark areas, then the black point, then overall contrast and brightness.\u00a0 The only adjustment on saturation came at the very end with a fairly stiff shot of Vibrance.<\/p>\n You might hear someone asking which one is real.\u00a0 Well, to be honest, neither.\u00a0 Definitely the blown out image isn\u2019t even close.\u00a0 And the final image is richer and more intense than the actual sunset.\u00a0 But which one is more believable \u2013 definitely the finished one.\u00a0 And what I was feeling is more in line with the finished image.\u00a0 It was indeed a very nice sunset.<\/p>\n Now I wouldn\u2019t suggest overexposing images on purpose.\u00a0 It doesn\u2019t always turn out this well.\u00a0 In fact, this photograph is the exception.\u00a0 But the lesson is if you really like the image but it\u2019s overexposed, give it a shot.\u00a0 Five minutes with Lightroom and you\u2019ll know if you can do anything with it or not.<\/p>\n Give it a try.<\/p>\n<\/a>Look at all that red.\u00a0 Looks like the image just might be ruined.\u00a0 The sky is overly bright and the foreground way too dark.\u00a0 And the ocean \u2013 nothing special going on there.\u00a0 It\u2019s just totally uninteresting (to say the very least; it would be more accurate to call it UGLY!).\u00a0 I don\u2019t know why I even bothered with it but I did.\u00a0 I must have been in a strange mood or too tired to know any better (it was awfully late).\u00a0 So let\u2019s see what happened.<\/p>\n<\/a>Well, that did a pretty good job.\u00a0 The sky looks like it just might work out.\u00a0 But I\u2019m still concerned with some possible residual clipping in the highlights, particularly the red channel.\u00a0 You can see there\u2019s a lack of detail in the brightest part of the clouds.\u00a0 That\u2019s what\u2019s bothering me.\u00a0 So I turned to the Recovery adjustment right below the Exposure adjustment.<\/p>\n<\/a>The Recovery adjustment is specifically for recovering highlights.\u00a0 However, if I had tried to use this tool first there was way too much to recover.\u00a0 So using Exposure first got the highlights enough under control so the Recovery tool would be more effective.\u00a0 The result is pretty subtle.\u00a0 Compare the brightest part of the cloud and you\u2019ll see some added definition there.\u00a0 And the red channel clipping in the first image appears to be taken care of.<\/p>\n<\/a>Now it\u2019s time to turn our attention to the near black foreground.\u00a0 I chose the Fill Light adjustment.\u00a0 This tool brightens the dark areas without affecting the bright ones.\u00a0 It works on the lower portion of the histogram.\u00a0 It\u2019s called Fill Light because it\u2019s like using fill flash.\u00a0 I use it a lot in situations like this.\u00a0 You have to be really carefully with it because you can get some grunge effects which some people like but not me.\u00a0 But in this image a lot is called for.\u00a0 I added 75 Fill Light.\u00a0 See how not only the dark foreground was recovered but also the ocean.\u00a0 And the clouds are pretty much unchanged.<\/p>\n<\/a>Now we need a black point.\u00a0 That\u2019s some small area in the image that is pure black.\u00a0 The image just doesn\u2019t have any punch; it\u2019s lacking contrast.\u00a0 I set a black point in virtually every image I work on.\u00a0 It forms the tonal foundation of the photograph.\u00a0 And I like to add Blacks before fiddling with Contrast.\u00a0 This one needs a lot of Black, like 55.<\/p>\n<\/a>I did some more tweaking with Brightness, Contrast, Exposure (again) and Blacks.\u00a0 The changes are pretty subtle but important.\u00a0 And dawgone, it\u2019s looking good.<\/p>\n<\/a>Now for the secret weapon.\u00a0 Actually, there are two.\u00a0 The first is Clarity and the second is Vibrance.\u00a0 Clarity makes the image glow.\u00a0 It does some mid-tone sharpening that doesn\u2019t really sharpen anything but instead adds sparkle to the image.\u00a0 I don\u2019t know how else to describe it.\u00a0 Did I mention it was magic?\u00a0 And Vibrance is a subtle saturation adjustment (if you don\u2019t go overboard) that tends to adjust the less saturated colors.\u00a0 I gave it 75 clarity and 50 Vibrance.\u00a0 You can see a lot better definition in the waves and clouds from the Clarity and richer blues because of the Vibrance.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/a>I\u2019m still not totally happy with the foreground so a little more Fill Light please.\u00a0 I punched it up to 90 which put a nice glow on the green foliage.\u00a0 And that\u2019s it.\u00a0 What do you think?\u00a0 Try that with JPEG.\u00a0 Can\u2019t be done.\u00a0 It\u2019s no wonder why serious photographers prefer to shoot in RAW.<\/p>\n