How to brighten up part of picture ?

[achanth]

I have tried to look at books and information on layers in PP software or Paintshop Pro but have not been able to find a good step by step advice. There must be somewhere.

Problem: picture where background is well lit, and face of person in foreground is underexosed (because no flash was used). Quite a common problem.

How do I isolate person in layer, then adjust lighting, and merge back into background layer so that person and background are equally lighted?

Sorry for asking this, but could not get solution to this.
Thanks.

 

[zac08]

Not an easy task to do.

But you can try to lasso the face and increase the brightness and contrast on that area.

 

[night86mare]

image --> adjustments --> shadow/highlights

will help somewhat

other than that, dodging the person's face might help somewhat too

but it's hard to say, it depends on how bad the problem is, whether details are still there or lost because of the poor exposure/lighting

 

[Hitman]

What you're trying to do is called 'Contrast Masking', it is easier if you have 2 shots - one expose for the highlight, one for the shadows. But if you only have one shot, you can use the Shadow/Highlight adjustment (some PP software call this 'Fill Light') in photoshop, or you can try the following steps and see if it works for you....

http://www.earthboundlight.com/phototips/contrast-masking-photoshop.html

Have fun!!

 

[HydroPoP]

Press the D-lighting function if u have a nikon camera. ;p

 

[jopel]

me can't find the d-lighting function in my nikon cam lei

 

[jopel]

in photoshop cs3, 1. right click on the image and select "convert to smart object". 2. go to Image>adjustment>shadow and highlight. Make necessary adjustment. press ok. 3. from the layer panel you will have a mask, select it and use the brush tool to hide or reveal your image.

 

[David Chin]

I don't know about Photoshop but doing this in Capture NX is really easy.

 

[STSHM1]

I have tried to look at books and information on layers in PP software or Paintshop Pro but have not been able to find a good step by step advice. There must be somewhere.

Problem: picture where background is well lit, and face of person in foreground is underexosed (because no flash was used). Quite a common problem.

How do I isolate person in layer, then adjust lighting, and merge back into background layer so that person and background are equally lighted?

Sorry for asking this, but could not get solution to this.
Thanks.

Try this book from Scott Kelby - 7-Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3. I believe lesson 2 is what you are looking at. Enjoy.

http://www.kelbytraining.com/?page=product&id=93

 

[calebk]

I would first tell you go get it right at the moment of the shot. There is no greater hassle than bringing up detail that is missing, or is severely underexposed.

That said, using Photoshop, Image > Adjustments > Shadow/Highlight is probably your best bet. Tweaking with the values to get you a natural looking image will be the challenge.

 

[shojibake]

If you only have one shot, create a duplicate of the original. Then apply contrast/brightness to it. Create a mask for that contrast layer. Paint out the bits that you want to show from the lower layer. I find a little feather works a long way, together with a wacom pen.