How to deal with highlights in PS Elements2

I have been working on this print, trying to get the background to be less prominent, but what I need help with is how would you deal with the glare from the hood of the truck?

I'm using Elements 2

Thanks for any help, I have tried the lasoo tool to isolate then play with brightness/contrast, but it didn't look good.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Norman

I have been working on this print, trying to get the background to be less prominent, but what I need help with is how would you deal with the glare from the hood of the truck?

I'm using Elements 2

Thanks for any help, I have tried the lasoo tool to isolate then play with brightness/contrast, but it didn't look good.

---

I think you should consider a different technique such as painting or cloning detail back in. There's not enough detail there that you can simply adjust levels or curves to look like the rest of the truck. I'd probably try cloning first to get it rough looking and then maybe use other tools like the paintbrush and gradient to smooth things out a bit. It won't be an easy done but it can be done. When cloning, it often helps to use a larger area to clone to than the specific area you're trying to clone from. In other words, make things overlap a bit so that it becomes more difficult to detect the edges of your cloning.

I think that if you blur out the background [using the blur tool which should be in elements because it is one of the basic tools in regular PS], and deal with the light coming into the upper portion of the frame, the glare on the car will become more of an interesting aspect to the photo rather than a distration. But that's just me.

How do you "want to deal with the glare"? Do you want it less intensive or out of the picture completely? You could clone the yellow from the rest of the car and then fool around with curves [not levels!!!] to lighten it up so that there is a highlight there but it isn't totally whited out. Or you could clone it and change the transparency [once again, I'm not positive if you can do this in Elements].

Anyway, I hope that helps a bit. If not, me sooooo sorry.

: )