# Requesting advice please



## johngalt (Oct 15, 2013)

Hi,

Admitting that I need to be more aware of where the sun is when 
photographing outside. That aside I'm requesting some suggestions
on how to mitigate my mistake. I would like to try and even out the
light on this group of players.

Tools at my disposal, Lightroom 5.2, Photoshop CS6, NIK Collection.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.


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## Selwin (Oct 16, 2013)

Hi Doug,

Nice shot and the team looks happy and proud so you did very well there. Lighting is tricky. The entire image is overexposed, but I even managed to pull the highlight detail out of your small jpeg so that will work. What works against the image and its exposure issue is that the team's faces are positioned on the horizon so you'll have to work with contrast between sky and the players. It would have been better to find a different camera position to avoid it.

I managed to bring back some balance in your image, but you will need to avoid to bring up the shadows too much. This would make it too obvious for the unexperienced eye that the image has been altered. Anyone can see that some players on the left are in full sunlight and the others are in the shadows. You can't "even out the light" more than appears to be realistic. Anyway here is my attempt. If you have the RAW file in big size you will be able to do better on details. Make sure you don't lose too much contrast in the shadow part of the image.




[Edit:]
Or even better with a little clarity instead of exposure:
 

Good luck,
Selwin


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## johngalt (Oct 16, 2013)

Selwin,

Thank you for your detailed response. Especially the screen shots of the develop slider positions.

I do have the RAW (DNG) files so I will give your suggestions a go.


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## Selwin (Oct 16, 2013)

Great! Good luck. Let us know if you need any further assistance. Eventually i would be interested to see the final result you'll send to your clients.


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## davidedric (Oct 29, 2013)

You mention that you have the Nik collection.  I'm pretty sure thar using Control Points and Viveza would allow you to bring the players in bright sunshine into better balance, without the complications of layers in CS6.   Would certainly be worth a quick try.

As a brand new member, I hope that mentioningg Nik is not a breach of etiquette!

Dave


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## Selwin (Oct 29, 2013)

Hi Dave, not to worry about discussing Nik products, at least not on my part. Although I have never used Nik, so can't comment on its suitability for this image, I don't think CS6 is necessary for this image. I did it simply in LR. I am confident that the RAW file if forgiving enough, there aren't even any clippings in the small jpegs. The real challenge with this particular image is not to overdo it. And that needs to be accomplished in the head of the photographer.


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## davidedric (Oct 29, 2013)

This was the sort of thing I had in mind.   Some global adjustments in LR, and Viveza on some of the players.  Happy to provide more details if you are interested, and would like to know if you think it's a bit rubbish


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## Linwood Ferguson (Oct 30, 2013)

It's practically impossible to do much with this poor quality jpg but the raw image should be very easy to fix.  I would suggest starting with the shadow all the way to the right, the highlight all the way to the left, then pull the black to the left until you get the contrast you like, then tweak back from the extremes depending on how flat it looks.  Clarity, Vibrance may help also.  

If there's still too much shadow effect, what I did in this sample was paint over the shadow area and re-adjust it again to bring up the uniforms and faces a bit.  You can do that in lightroom just as easily (and if you bring it up too much and it looks a bit flat, then add some saturation and clarity in the painted area only).

Sun on field sports is a constant companion.  Or adversary.  Depending.


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