# Retrieving "Blown out" highlights ?



## Anthony Marson (Apr 13, 2017)

Attached is a picture I took last year with an Lumix FZ200 camera of wild garlic in a wooded glade.

I've tried several ways to adjust the sunlight areas of the picture, but to no avail.

Can you suggest how I could retreive the blown out sunlight areas on the picture?


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## Gnits (Apr 13, 2017)

I do not see blown out highlights.

Are you trying to remove the bright sky from the gaps in the trees ?


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## Anthony Marson (Apr 13, 2017)

I was talking about the areas either side of the pathway on the left of the picture and in the background.


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## Johan Elzenga (Apr 13, 2017)

Whether or not you can recover highlight clipping depends first and foremost on the file format. If you shot in jpeg, you can forget about it. If you shot in raw, you can try to reduce the exposure and/or whites, and them increase the shadows to compensate for that. Don't expect miracles, though.


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## Anthony Marson (Apr 13, 2017)

JohanElzenga said:


> Whether or not you can recover highlight clipping depends first and foremost on the file format. If you shot in jpeg, you can forget about it. If you shot in raw, you can try to reduce the exposure and/or whites, and them increase the shadows to compensate for that. Don't expect miracles, though.



The original was shot in RAW, I've tried reducing the exposure, increasing the shadows, tried using the adjustment brush all without success on reducing the "lightness" of the areas I referred to above. Hence I came to the Forum as a last resort.


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## Johan Elzenga (Apr 13, 2017)

Like I said: don't expect miracles. Raw can be overexposed too. You could replace certain areas in Photoshop.


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## clee01l (Apr 13, 2017)

I've had some success in blown highlights of sky.  Select Luminance in the HSL panel.  Select the Adjustment pointer than hover over the blown highlights that are sky. Click and drag the cursor down from that point.  This will shift the luminance of the blue and maybe the Aqua downward revealing some blue sky where everything was white before.  If the sunlight has blown the highlights in foliage, the luminance adjustment may bring out greens and yellows.


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## Conrad Chavez (Apr 14, 2017)

If the clip warnings are turned on in Develop as shown in the attachment, there are visible red highlight clipping indicators in the light areas beside the pathway and in the background. Those do indicate some minor clipping, but it’s a low enough amount that there could be enough information in the raw file to reconstruct the highlights at least somewhat. When they’re unrecoverable you usually see solid red areas of highlight clipping, not little dots.






Many things have been suggested so far, but there hasn’t been any mention of reducing the Highlights value. That’s usually where I go first in this situation, and it should be the most helpful option if there is enough highlight information in the raw file.

Also, this is why I look for clipping with the clipping indicators instead of the histogram. Clipping is only easy to see in the histogram if a lot of pixels are at a certain level, and it doesn't even tell you the important thing: where the clipping occurs in the image. But the clipping indicators tell you both.


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## Ian.B (Apr 14, 2017)

Anthony Marson said:


> I was talking about the areas either side of the pathway on the left of the picture and in the background.


you could clone something darker over the smaller h/lights 
As Conrad said: drag the h/light slider to the left 100% -- that is one of the 1st sliders I often use 

Photography tips for next time: better to get it right in the camera -- if not sure bracket a set of images --- with your camera; always have the histogram on in the viewfinder --- that is one of the great advantages of our P+S/mirrorless cameras --- you can also see the clippings on the recorded image so if in doubt have a quick look at the image on the camera screen . That's something I seldom do with my lumix fz300 and Oly em d1 because I watch the histogram when taking the photo; in fact I took something like 100+ nature photos this morning and never looked at a record image because it's all visible _BEFORE _I click (wouldn't dslr uses love that ). 
If you think the FZ200 is good Anthony; you will be amazed with the FZ300 . the most versatile camera I even used 
With a subject like the photo in question, you are usually better taking them when it's cloudy or early AM / late PM when the contrasts are not so great -- same goes for rain forest and white water photos 
Great to see you used raw too; jpg is good and handy but raw is so much better


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## Tony Jay (Apr 14, 2017)

I am with Conrad Chavez here: pull back the highlights slider to -100. The pull back the whites to -100.
This is a diagnostic test to check whether any of the highlights are still blown after these adjustments.
It is likely that with this treatment the histogram will have moved away from the rightmost extreme highlight region. 
It may mean that nothing is actually blown - and in this case colour and detail should become visible in areas thought to be blown.
However, parts of the image could still be blown - in this case blown areas will show a lack of detail and colour with those areas displaying a shade of grey instead of colour and detail.

If nothing is actually blown as evidenced by the return of detail and colour then pull the whites slider to the right stopping just shy of upsetting the clipping indicators.
Whether the rest of image needs attention will then be a matter of taste and aesthetics.
Rearranging overall exposure as well as the shadows and blacks can then also be employed to get all the tonal relationships back in kilter.

Tony Jay


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## Gnits (Apr 14, 2017)

For woodland scenes, I sometimes find that bright blue patches (or overblown or white or grey) in the canopy can be a distraction to the image.  In those cases I bring the image into Ps and use various selection, patch and clone tools to fill in the areas with foliage, on a new layer.

You can approximate the same in Lr with various brushes, but you have more control in Ps. 

This situation is also highly subject to chromatic aberration on the boundaries between the leaves/ branches and the bright sky behind.


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