too bright

[sean300]

I took this picture around 9 this morning. There was no way to avoid the sun light. I was wondering if there is any way that I can blend in the rest of the face so that it's not so bright on the left side. Is there anything special that I can do with photoshop?


Sean

[schrackman]

You can use the clone and blur tools but on this shot it's gonna take a bit of work to get it to look natural. Personally, if it were me, I wouldn't spend the time. It would be just a whole lot easier to reshoot and try to get the proper exposure. What were your camera settings on this shot?

[sean300]

I was just wondering if there was a way to do it just for future stuff. I understand that there would be way too much work on this.

[another view]

Any medium (film or digital) can only handle so much contrast - much less than our eye can see. The trick is to reduce the amount of contrast and fill flash may have helped. I think in this case that you still would have had some blown out areas but it wouldn't have been anywhere near as much as without. In bright sunlight, you'll want to use the fastest sync speed that the camera has (could be 1/250 but check the camera's instruction manual).

With fill flash, you're filling in the shadows which will reduce the contrast. In your shot, it's not actually shadow because you exposed for the shadow side and that's why the highlights are blown out.

[sean300]

another view

im fairly new to photography so i dont really know what you mean by sync speed. is that the samething as shutter speed? thanks

[another view]

Sean, I moved this thread over to the Help forum - probably a better fit there.

Sync Speed, or Flash Sync Speed is a shutter speed. The speed listed in the camera's manual will be the fastest speed that you can use with a flash, otherwise the shutter opens and closes before the flash properly lights what you're shooting. This is really the fastest Sync Speed because you can use anything slower - even several seconds if you want or need.

In that situation, you'd probably want to use the fastest sync speed you could. Your shutter speed was at 1/200 which was probably very close to the sync speed, and that exposure was for the shadow too so you'd need less of a natural light exposure. This means a faster shutter speed and/or smaller aperture.

[SpeedingSphere]

For your future shots, listen to everything they've said so far. I've found most of these tips on sites elsewhere, and they've helped me with photos of skin in natural lighting.

as for your photo in this thread, I've given a shot at fixing this for you. I know its not perfect, but I gave it my best. I hope you dont mind the edit. if you dont like it, i'll take it down.

[sean300]

wow thanks SpeedingSphere, you did a great job.

thanks for all the comments guys. thank you.