Digital Camera World » exposure

Blown highlights: how to rescue blown skies using simple Photoshop effects

jmeyer — Fri, 26 Apr 2013 23:01:22 +0000

Are blown highlights spoiling your landscape photography? Find out in this tutorial how you can use simple Photoshop effects like a Gradient Fill adjustment layer to get more balanced exposures.

When shooting landscapes, you can overcome the difference in light levels between a bright sky and darker terrain to produce an evenly exposed shot by using a graduated neutral density filter – also called an ND grad filter. If you don’t have one of these, don’t worry – you can reproduce the effect in Photoshop Elements.

The key to an effective ND grad in Photoshop Elements is to use selections, layers and gradients. The gradient will be on a separate layer, so you can easily adjust exposure to restore colours and details that are missing from an over-exposed sky.

In this Photoshop tutorial you’ll learn how to isolate the sky using selection tools, and how to apply a Gradient Fill adjustment layer to this selection. This will help darken the over-exposed sky at the top of the shot while blending it seamlessly with the shot’s correctly exposed clouds lower down.

Our before image

You’ll also learn how to tint the gradient so that it contains the same colours as the clouds. This combination of subtly blended tones and colours will make the edited sky look natural.

As well as tweaking the sky’s colours and tone, we’ll show you how to make selective tonal adjustments to other parts of the shot to bring out texture and detail. We’ll also use layer masks to prevent the lighthouse from being altered by the gradient layer, and gently tweak its mid-tones with the Burn tool to make it look less flat.

How to rescue blown highlights in your landscape photography – steps 1-3

01 Adjust the mid-tones
Open your start image with the blown highlights. Click the Create New Fill or Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers palette and choose Levels. Drag the grey Midtone input slider right to 0.70. This darkens the photo’s mid-tones, revealing more colour and texture in the over-exposed sky.

02 Select the sky
The sky adjustment works well, but the land is now too dark. We need to restrict the adjustment to the sky. Select the Magic Wand and set the Tolerance to 41. Keep Contiguous ticked. Hold down Shift and click the sky repeatedly until it’s all selected. Don’t worry if you include bits of lighthouse at this stage.

03 Fill the selection
To select the land choose Select>Inverse. Now click the white layer mask and choose Edit>Fill Selection. In the Fill Layer window set the Use drop-down menu to Black and click OK. The sky will remain in its adjusted state while the land gets restored to its original exposure.

PAGE 1: How to rescue blown highlights in your landscape photography – steps 1-3
PAGE 2 How to rescue blown highlights in your landscape photography – steps 4-6
PAGE 3 How to rescue blown highlights in your landscape photography – steps 7-9
PAGE 4: How to rescue blown highlights in your landscape photography – steps 10-12
PAGE 5: How to rescue blown highlights in your landscape photography – steps 13-15
PAGE 6: How to rescue blown highlights in your landscape photography – steps 16-18

10 common exposure problems every photographer faces (and how to fix them)

anicholson — Tue, 09 Apr 2013 23:01:16 +0000

Are you struggling to get well-lit shots? You don’t need any fancy equipment or complex lighting techniques. This guide to the 10 most common exposure problems all photographers face will show you how to avoid them and start taking better pictures today.

At some point most photographers take a picture that doesn’t come out exactly as they expected, it’s either too dark or much lighter than they want it to be.

This might be because of a mistake with the metering, they’ve made an exposure error or because the camera settings are wrong. In this article we explain 10 of the most common exposure problems and how to avoid them.

Exposure Problem 1. White subject made grey

Camera metering systems generally expect the brightness of a scene to average out as a midtone.

There may be very bright and dark sections, but the average brightness is somewhere in between.

So if you fill the frame with a very light subject, a winter landscape or a light, sandy beach, for example, the camera will reduce the exposure to render it a midtone. Hence a white subject is often made grey.

The solution is simple, just use the exposure compensation control to increase the exposure above the value suggested by the camera.

With snow you may need to increase it by over 1EV, perhaps even 2EV.

The key is to keep an eye on the histogram view and increase the exposure until the trace reaches the far right of the scale, indicating that there are some whites in the image.

Don’t increase the exposure too far and introduce a large peak at the right end of the histogram as this means that lots of the highlights are burned out.

Photography Basics: the No. 1 cheat sheet for metering and exposure

jmeyer — Fri, 11 Jan 2013 12:01:08 +0000

Aperture, shutter speed and ISO are three photography basics every photographer must learn, as they are the building blocks of exposure. It’s the exposure meter inside your digital camera that essentially brings them all together.

Your camera’s meter measures the amount of light that’s reflected from the scene you’re pointing the lens at, and it then selects the combination of aperture, shutter speed and ISO that it calculates will produce a balanced exposure. Sounds fool-proof, right?

The problem is, cameras can be easily fooled. And that’s why a sound knowledge of photography basics will help you take control of your digital camera and stop you from wasting pictures.

Most camera meters work on the assumption that a scene should be exposed as if it’s 18% midtone grey. This is because it is generally considered that most scenes will reflect 18% of the light that falls on them.

And there are many that do! Such as a church under a clear blue sky. But in reality the world is not full of midtones. There are bright white winter landscapes, flat bleached-out skies and dark interiors that photographers have to contend with.

To help you along in your photographic endeavours, our latest photography cheat sheet draws on the key photography basics of exposure to help you bag a well-lit shot no matter where you may be shooting.

Our new cheat sheet offers step-by-step instructions in the form of a flow chart for calculating the best camera exposure and metering settings in four of the trickiest conditions in which photographers can shoot.

Click on the infographic to expand the cheat sheet (or drag and drop it to your desktop) and follow our steps for exposing your camera correctly for Dark subjects, Light subjects, Highlights and High contrast.

If there’s one cheat sheet among all our infographics that you need, it’s this ultimate guide to understanding the photography basics of exposure.

Photographing Snow: the simple way to nail exposure

jmeyer — Mon, 07 Jan 2013 11:00:30 +0000

Photographing snow brings a new challenge for many photographers, who struggle to take control of their camera’s metering system amid the winter landscape’s extreme contrast and reflective surfaces. Follow the camera tips below and you’ll soon feel confident exposing your winter landscape photography in any weather.

Modern digital cameras are equipped with very accurate exposure meters, but they still have to be used properly  to get well-exposed pictures.

Your camera’s meter works by measuring reflected light and then calculating what the best exposure should be.  The problem when photographing snow is that the light reflected from a light subject is very different from that reflected from a dark subject, and this can cause the camera’s meter to get the exposure wrong.

Our first shot

If there’s a high proportion of light tones in the scene you’re shooting, such as a wide expanse of sky, bright water or photographing snow, your camera will under-expose and your image will be too dark.

How to fix metering woes when photographing snow

Meter from a midtone
Look for a midtone within the scene that you are photographing and use Partial or Spot metering to take the reading using Manual exposure mode. Set the aperture to f/16 when shooting landscapes and then adjust the shutter speed until the indicator is lined up at 0 on the Exposure Level Indicator.

Use Exposure Lock
In Aperture Priority mode you can still retain control by locking the meter readings using the AE Lock button. Use Partial or Spot metering to take a reading from a midtone as before, then press and hold down AE Lock while recomposing and taking the shot.

Exposing for snow
When there is no midtone to meter from, use the Exposure Compensation button to avoid under-exposure. For white or highly reflective scenes – pictures of snow, for example – dial in around +2 on the compensation scale. Check the histogram and adjust the amount of compensation if necessary.

Better pictures of fog and mist: adding intrigue to an everyday landscape

jmeyer — Thu, 15 Nov 2012 11:45:24 +0000

When it comes to weather phenomenon, mist and fog should be applauded as a way of creating atmosphere and adding a sense of mystery to your landscape photography. They provide that special quality that can turn an ordinary photo composition into something extraordinary.

But to create a striking image these elements need to be handled carefully to prevent the image looking flat or the subject being lost in the fog. Here’s some advice on how best to approach these unique shooting conditions and produce a misty masterpiece.

All images by Mark Hamblin

Mist and fog can occur at any time of year, but are often more prevalent during the autumn months since they occur when there is an extreme difference between daytime and nighttime temperatures.  These are natural phenomenon that occur when hot air meets cold air to form small droplets of water suspended in the air.

They usually form overnight as the temperature drops, but often last until the following morning, so you’ll need to set your alarm clock for an early start and head to a suitable photo location to catch it at its best. Unlike mist, which is quite mobile and short-lived, fog is thicker and can sometimes remain all day if there is no wind or sun to burn it off.

The best places to find pictures of mist are above or around bodies of water such as ponds, lakes, rivers and along the coast. Cool, damp valleys and natural hollows act as a reservoir for mist, but equally it can form around hilltops and over wet covered ground.

By getting out early when weather conditions are favourable you’ll soon build up a picture of where mist and fog forms in your local area, and this will be repeated, which helps when it comes to planning your shoot.

Locations that provide a high viewpoint looking over a valley or forest where there are features extending up through the mist work well. A low mist or ground fog is ideal for this, which will gently swirl around and reveal or hide elements within the landscape.

Also try immersing yourself in thick fog for a surreal experience, where compositional elements recede away from the camera. By placing a dominant subject in the foreground, it becomes the primary focal point and all other elements become secondary as they fade into the background.

PAGE 1: Where and when to take pictures of fog and mist
PAGE 2: Embrace the light
PAGE 3: Tips for photographing fog and mist
PAGE 4: Shooting mist at sunrise for extra impact

Expose to the right: the camera technique every landscape photographer must know

jmeyer — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 02:00:35 +0000

Learning to expose to the right can be one of the most valuable photography tips you learn as a photographer. ‘Exposing to the right’ is a technique for getting the maximum amount of image data in an image which is then adjusted to make its brightness correct.

When you expose to the right what you are doing is relying on using the camera’s histogram view and/or highlight alert to guide the exposure and avoid burning out important details or capturing a dark noisy image.

This is an especially useful technique for shooting landscape photography who want to preserver detail in bright clouds and avoid enhancing noise in dark shadows. The best results are achieved by shooting raw format files as these have the maximum amount of data for adjustment.

Why not just underexpose?

Many photographers underexpose scenes to preserve details in the highlights, but the shaodws become very dark

When the highlights in a scene are overexposed and burned out they are gone forever, they can’t be brought back by any amount of Photoshop adjustment.

To avoid having these featureless blobs of highlights in their images many photographers underexpose their images to some degree and then brighten them post-capture.

The problem with this approach is that image shadows tend to have more noise than brighter areas and brightening shadows brings out the noise.

This means if you capture a dark shot that needs brightening you are recording a noisy image and then make the noise more obvious.

Lighter parts of the image have a stronger signal and less noise, so provided that you don’t burn out anything important, it’s better to record a bright image and make it darker.

PAGE 1: Why should I expose to the right?
PAGE 2: Important highlights
PAGE 3: Using your histogram to expose to the right
PAGE 4: How to expose to the right
PAGE 5: The last step

What is a histogram? Discover the secret to perfect exposure

jmeyer — Wed, 17 Oct 2012 01:00:02 +0000

There’s no need to be embarrassed for asking “What is a histogram?”. While your camera’s histogram is one of the more important tools at your disposal, many photographers are unaware of its capabilities. In this post we’ll answer the question, What is a histogram? And we’ll also answer some of the more common questions around how to read a histogram, where to find it and what you should be looking for on that tiny graph.

What is a histogram: all your questions answered

I’m new to photography: what is a histogram and what does it do?

A histogram is simply a visual guide to the range of tones or brightness levels in an image. It can be viewed on your camera’s LCD screen alongside an image after you’ve taken it, or displayed during Live View shooting, but either way it shows the same thing: a small graph that displays what tones an image is made up of.

So why do I need it?

Because it shows the spread of brightness levels in a scene, it is the most effective way to judge the exposure of an image. It also gives an indication as to whether you need to make the exposure brighter or darker.

The standard histogram found on digital SLRs measures the brightness on a 256-step scale. The far left of the graph represents 0, or pure black, and the far right of the graph represents 255, or pure white.

The steps between these points are filled with all the possible shades in between, with the centre of the axis being the midtone brightness level.

The height of the histogram at each point along this 256-point scale is an indication of the number of pixels in the shot at that level of brightness. The histogram’s size and shape will change depending on the mix of tones in the scene.

Right, so is there a particular histogram shape – an ideal exposure – that I should be looking for?

Well, the histogram is merely a reflection of what is in front of the camera. If the scene or subject is dark, the histogram should be bunched towards the left, or dark, end of the scale; if the scene or subject is bright, it should be over to the right (if it helps you to remember which is which, right is bright!).

If a scene is mainly made up of midtones – a brown horse in a green field, for instance – then the histogram should be humped roughly in the centre of the scale, but there’s no such thing as a ‘perfect’ histogram.

That said, there are occasions when you might need to make adjustments to get a more accurate histogram, and consequently a more accurate exposure.

Is my camera’s built-in exposure meter not very accurate then?

As we discovered when talking about exposure last issue, your camera won’t always get it right automatically.

Because the built-in light meter is designed to achieve an exposure with an average range of midtones, scenes that are much brighter than midtone (such as bright white snowscapes) will appear grey, or under-exposed; scenes that are much darker than midtone (such as shadow-packed night scenes), will also appear grey, or over-exposed.

The way to rectify this is to use Exposure Compensation to make pictures brighter or darker. To do this, you need to press the ‘+/-’ button and turn your camera’s control wheel. Turn it clockwise to brighten up an image, or anti-clockwise to darken it.

This is where the histogram is most useful, as you can gauge how much brighter or darker to make the image.

Take a shot of a white sandy beach on a bright sunny day, for instance, and you know the histogram should be closer to the right of the scale.

If it’s not, dial-in some positive Exposure Compensation and keep checking the histogram until it is. Make sure you don’t go too far, though, otherwise the histogram will become ‘clipped’.

I’ve heard of the term ‘clipping’ before. Why is this such a bad thing?

If the histogram runs off the left or right of the scale, it means that part of that picture information is being lost. If the histogram is clipped on the left, the darkest shadows are said to be ‘crushed’, as they will be pure  black, with no detail.

This is fine if you want, say, shadows or the night sky to be pure black, but even with shadows and night skies you usually want some texture or detail.

When the histogram is clipped on the right, the highlights are said to be ‘blown’, and will render as pure white, again without any texture or detail.

That said, there are times when capturing clipped highlights will be unavoidable. Specular highlights – those bright, reflected spots of light that appear on shiny objects – are supposed to be bright white, and don’t actually contain any important texture or detail.

So I should always make sure there’s space between the right side of the histogram and the edge of the scale?

Yes, if you can, but don’t leave too much of a gap. You should always try and expose digital images so that they’re as bright as possible, but not clipped, because for technical reasons the sensor can record more tonal information towards the bright end of the histogram.

Is there ever a chance that the histogram has got it wrong?

No, it’s simply a representation of tonal range. On some cameras, the graph is small, so it can be hard to judge whether the edges of the histogram are at the extremes, but the highlight alert feature will indicate any over-exposed areas.

Exposure bracketing: how to set up your camera to shoot high-contrast scenes

jmeyer — Sun, 07 Oct 2012 14:00:21 +0000

Getting exposure right is one of the biggest challenges you’ll face when shooting landscapes. Often, you’ll find that the ideal exposure times for the sky and foreground will differ by two to three stops. You can use a graduated ND filter to balance the exposure, but this means having to haul around filters and holders. Your camera’s exposure bracketing function offers a nice compromise that lets you capture all the detail in your high-contrast scenes.

In-camera exposure bracketing enables you to expose correctly for each area of the image. Most DSLRs enable  you to select three (or more) exposure values for three exposures. The difference can usually be between one and three stops in one-third increments.

Once primed, the sequence is shot with one image under-exposed by a stop, one correctly exposed and one over-exposed by a stop.

So, for instance, if you were to expose a landscape for 1/250 sec at f/16, setting the bracketed exposures at one stop faster and slower, then the bracketed shots would be exposed for 1/500 sec and 1/125 sec.

This sequence will capture the full detail in the scene and can then be blended in Photoshop. Here’s how to set up your SLR and shoot bracketed shots for perfect exposures.

How to set up and use exposure bracketing

Check exposures
Set your camera to aperture priority mode, choose an aperture of f/16 and set the ISO to 100. Set the metering mode to centre-weighted. Take an exposure reading for the sky by making a note of the shutter speed, then take a reading for the foreground and shadow areas.

Use a tripod
The only aspect of the image that will change in each shot is the length of the exposure, so a tripod is essential. Attach your camera and compose the shot. To help beat camera shake, use a remote shutter release (or self-timer) and lock the mirror up (see your manual).

Switch to bracketing
Set the camera to take bracketed exposures. Refer to the notes you took earlier and choose an appropriate exposure range for the sequence. For instance, if your foreground reading is 1/250 sec and your sky is 1/1000 sec, then you would set the bracketing to +/- 2.

Check the histogram
After taking the sequence, read your histogram to check the over-exposed frame and ensure there are no clipped shadows, then examine the under-exposed image for burnt-out highlights. If either is clipped or too dark or bright, adjust the bracket by half a stop, then reshoot and recheck your images.

Shoot sunset photography with perfect colours

jmeyer — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 06:00:11 +0000

There is something truly magical about the warm glow of shooting sunrise or sunset photography. The gloriously intense colours often inspire photographers to pick up their cameras, but how many times of you been disappointed by your results?

And have you been left wondering what happened to the vibrant colours that inspired you to shoot sunrise and sunset photography in the first place?

Does this happen to you?

You’re not alone. This is a common problem in sunset photography, but one that is easy enough to put right.

Here  are three ways to make sure your pictures pack a colourful punch the next time you attempt to shoot sunrise or sunset photography!

01 Optimise your exposure
A lack of vibrancy in your pictures can often be due to over-exposure, which results in washed-out colours. To combat this, take a meter reading from the sky, excluding the sun itself and anything in the foreground.

02 Warm up your shots
Adjust white balance manually using your camera’s presets, or for more control use the Kelvin (k) setting to select a colour temperature of between 6,000 and 7,000k. If you shoot in raw, this can be done during processing.

03 Add vibrancy
If you’re a JPEG shooter, the vibrancy can be increased by selecting the Vivid or Landscape Picture Style. To rescue an insipid shot, use the Saturation and Vibrance sliders in Adobe Camera Raw or Photoshop Lightroom.

Understanding Exposure: what you need to know about light to take pictures that shine

jmeyer — Fri, 17 Aug 2012 01:00:46 +0000

Understanding exposure can be confusing, so allow us to break it down and start with the basics. When taking photographs, an image is recorded by light reaching your digital camera’s sensor.

Like filling a bath with water, you need a certain amount of light to create a successful exposure; too little or too much can be a disaster. To regulate the amount of light reaching your sensor, the length of an exposure is controlled by two key components: aperture and shutter speed.

The aperture in your lens is equivalent to how far the taps are opened on the bath; the shutter speed is how long the taps are left running.

A wide aperture lets in more light, a narrow aperture lets in less light (find out when to go wide and when to go small).

Meanwhile, the shutter speed you choose will determine the length of time the light hits your sensor.

The aperture and shutter speed work in unison to take the exposure – and you can adjust one to suit the other.

You can choose a wide aperture, such as f/4, or a narrow aperture, such as f/16. And you can choose a slow shutter speed, such as 1/8 sec, or a fast shutter speed, such as 1/1000 sec.

There is an additional variable that effects exposure, and that’s ISO. The lower the ISO, the more light is required to record the image – using the above analogy, think of it as the size of the bath (find out when is best to increase ISO).

While ISO isn’t used as extensively as aperture/shutter speed to control exposure – ideally you want to keep it as low as possible as image quality degrades the higher you go – higher ISO is useful in low-light conditions (find out how to reduce noise at high ISO settings).