Correcting exposure and recovering highlights

Now that we know some of the basics of working with Adobe Camera Raw, what I want to do here is dig a bit deeper. In particular in this movie, I want to focus in on how we can correct exposure. And how we can deal with an issue of recovering detail in the shadows or the highlights when needed. We'll be working with three different images. So we'll open up all of these three files in Camera Raw at one time. To do this click into one of the files and hold down the Cmd key on a Mac, Ctrl key on Windows and then click into the others. In this way, we can select multiple files at once.

To open these all up in Camera Raw, we'll navigate to the File Pull down menu then we'll chose Open in Camera Raw. Or we may chose to use this shortcut which is Cmd+ r on a Mac or Ctrl+r on Windows. Either way let's go ahead and open up these images in Camera Raw. Now so far we've talked a bit about how we can use these sliders in order to make adjustments. And many of these adjustments that we've been talking about have been subjective. Yet we can add a bit of objectivity to our adjustments by turning off an important indicator. Up top we have what's called the histogram.

The histogram is the visualization of the data that we have in our image. Here these are the shadows also the mid tones and then the highlights. You may notice that the highlights push right up against the far right side of the histogram and here we have some really bright highlights in the background. And often what can happen with highlights is we can have loss of detail in these areas. In order to see that, we can turn on the clipping indicators by clicking on these two little icons right here. Now currently the red color is showing me that I have loss of detail in my highlights.

Currently we don't have any loss of details in our shadows. Yet if we were to make an adjustment to one of these sliders. Say we wanted to darken up our blacks. Here you can see this blue color is showing me a problem area. And a reason why this is a problem is because we have a loss of detail and therefore this image won't be able to be printed very well. All right, we're here how can we correct that? I'll go ahead and reset my black slider by double clicking that because in this image really it's an issue about the highlights. Well we can correct that with a few different sliders.

The first one you want to try to work with is the Highlight slider. Here as I click and drag this to the left you can see that it quickly took care of that problem, that is now solved. Next I may want to make a few other adjustments as well. I'll brighten up my shadows and then I'll also increase my exposure. Yet as I increase the exposure I need to be careful that I'm not clipping or losing detail in my highlights there. If you noticed that we'll just go ahead and use this slider again to try to reduce the clipping in that area of your image. In this way you can see that having these indicators on can really help you out.

Alright, well let's jump to another example. Here we'll go to a photograph that was captured of my wife and two of our daughters and our little puppy there in lake Tahoe. And you see that we have this snow. This snow is really bright yet it isn't being clipped. Here with the highlight indicator if I drag this to the right we can see now we have clipping. If I drag this to the left we can see that that's gone. You know sometimes you'll have an area which is overexposed yet the indicator isn't telling you that that's a problem area. Well, if you notice that just use those same sliders in order to correct that location.

In this case now we have much better detail in this area of the photograph. Next, you may want to make a few other adjustments as well, right? Perhaps you want to increase the color temperature by dragging this to the right just a touch. We also might want to work on our contrast or other areas of the photograph. Like we could add a little bit of clarity, vibrancy and color saturation. All right, well in this way as we click on the Preview button you can see the before and after. You can see that correcting exposure sometimes involves using those indicators. In other situations it might involve just making adjustments to the sliders so that the photograph looks its best. Well last but not least I want to show you a tricky scenario. I'm going to click on this image that I captured on a surf trip down in Baja, Mexico.

Well here, which this image if we zoom in on it you'll notice that the clipping indicator is showing me that I'm having some issues on the front of the car. Well, if I drag the highlight slider to the left, I can try to bring down some of the detail that I have here but it just isn't working. That clipping indicator, it's still there. Well, what do you do in situations like that? On situations like that rather than using the Highlight slider and dragging that down you first try that. If it doesn't work, you go straight to what's called the Tone Curve. Here in the Tone Curve we have two different options. We can use what's called a parametric curve and also a point curve. Now the tone curve is definitely more advanced.

So, I'm not going to get into all of the details of the tone curve except that I want to highlight one that will help you with exposure issues. Here if we want to bring down the detail of highlights and if the Highlight slider or those other basic sliders don't work, go to the point tone curve. Then click in the top most point you have here in this curve and click and drag that down until that clipping indicator disappears. In this way you can see here's before. And then now here's after. Now with this image this correction was subtle yet nonetheless significant.

In other images you may have larger areas that you just can't correct. Well, if you run into situations like that, well what you need to do is to take an advanced step. Take that advanced step of making your way to the tone curve. And then click on that top point in the curve and drag it down just a little bit until you see that clipping indicator disappear. Alright, well last but not least before we wrap this up we'll navigate back to the Basic panel and here take a look at this photograph. Again so far there are no clipping indicators, which is great.

I have decided that I want to add a little bit of contrast. So I'll increase my contrast. I also want to darken the blacks. As I do that, I notice I have some loss of detail in these areas. You know, a certain amount of loss of detail in your blacks sometimes is okay. I know photographers who define their photographic style by having really deep rich blacks. Well if you're one of those photographers this indicator, well it might be a little bit distracting. Because let's say that you want to have loss of detail in all of these trap shadows that you have here underneath the car.

Well in order to turn off the indicators, all that you need to do is to click on the icon located here at the top of the histogram. In that way it will turn off that clipping indicator so that you can then process and work on your image without that distracting overlay.