Problematic highlights in jpg image

R
Posted By
Rick
Feb 12, 2005
Views
533
Replies
19
Status
Closed
I’ve been given a color jpg image of 475 KB to print. It is a portrait, taken with a FjuiFilm S5000 digital camera in flash mode, indoors, with a dark background but with some bright incandescent ceiling lamps. The image is 960 x 1280 and has an sRGB color space.

The image seems quite flat. Whenever I attempt to increase brightness or contrast, several areas of highlight immediately "solarize" (saturate?). These seem to be broad areas that reflect the light (a broad forehead, for example).

I thought it might be possible to select these areas that are nearly-saturated, invert the selection, and increase brightness and contrast in those areas only.

The only type of selection like this I see is Color Range. I tried this, but I don’t think this will work for me. Is it possible to select areas of the image that are brightest?

Or is there an easier trail I should be going down?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Photoshop CS 8.0, Mac OS X 10.3.8

Thanks,

Please, no "Go Google this" replies. I wouldn’t ask a question here if I hadn’t done that already.

DaveC

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H
harrylimey
Feb 12, 2005
"DaveC" wrote in message
I’ve been given a color jpg image of 475 KB to print. It is a portrait,
taken
with a FjuiFilm S5000 digital camera in flash mode, indoors, with a dark background but with some bright incandescent ceiling lamps. The image is
960
x 1280 and has an sRGB color space.

The image seems quite flat. Whenever I attempt to increase brightness or contrast, several areas of highlight immediately "solarize" (saturate?).

These controls should be used sparingly and after all else!!

Or is there an easier trail I should be going down?

Have you tried levels? that should be the first port of call? And as you have CS you could try The Highlights & Shadow control (expanded)- that can be quite successful with a flat image.
I’ve no doubt that Curves could do the trick also, but personally I find that difficult to use.
There is also another method involving copying the layer, inverting and blurring and using in overlay mode, but I cannot find the exact details of that at the moment!!
MB
Mick Brown
Feb 12, 2005
DaveC wrote in
news::

I’ve been given a color jpg image of 475 KB to print. It is a portrait, taken with a FjuiFilm S5000 digital camera in flash mode, indoors, with a dark background but with some bright incandescent ceiling lamps. The image is 960 x 1280 and has an sRGB color space.
The image seems quite flat. Whenever I attempt to increase brightness or contrast, several areas of highlight immediately "solarize" (saturate?). These seem to be broad areas that reflect the light (a broad forehead, for example).

I thought it might be possible to select these areas that are nearly-saturated, invert the selection, and increase brightness and contrast in those areas only.

The only type of selection like this I see is Color Range. I tried this, but I don’t think this will work for me. Is it possible to select areas of the image that are brightest?

Or is there an easier trail I should be going down?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Photoshop CS 8.0, Mac OS X 10.3.8

Thanks,

Why dont you post a link to the pic and we can have a play with it.

Mick Brown
www.photo.net/photos/mlbrown
J
jjs
Feb 12, 2005
From your description, what you have are bloomed highlights – a nasty consequence of digital imaging. Can you post the picture so we can see it? (I’ll add with my usual "do the right thing in the camera! PS is no substitute for talent.)
R
Rick
Feb 12, 2005
On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 03:02:01 -0800, Mick Brown wrote
(in article ):

Why dont you post a link to the pic and we can have a play with it.

http://home.covad.net/~tmcenter/peninsula/ElderPair

It’s not a complete image, just a portion of it.

You can’t view it with a web browser; it just displays data in the window. So just download it.

It’s a Photoshop 2.0 file with no filename extension. Macs don’t as a rule need them, and PS didn’t add one. If you can’t open it, should PC users add ".psd" to the name? Don’t know…

What’s the best way to do this — post a jpg of your results? And please tell me in detail what you did so I can apply it to the original file here.

Thanks,

Please, no "Go Google this" replies. I wouldn’t ask a question here if I hadn’t done that already.

DaveC

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R
Rick
Feb 12, 2005
Can you post the picture so we can see it?

See url elsewhere in the thread

"do the right thing in the camera! PS is no
substitute for talent.

Right you are. But sometimes we’re given what we’re given, and have to work with.

Education of friends as to the blessings and trepidations of the digital world is next on the list.

Thanks,

Please, no "Go Google this" replies. I wouldn’t ask a question here if I hadn’t done that already.

DaveC

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J
jjs
Feb 12, 2005
"DaveC" wrote in message
Can you post the picture so we can see it?

"do the right thing in the camera! PS is no
substitute for talent.

Right you are. But sometimes we’re given what we’re given, and have to work
with.

True, true. In fact, I must admit I’ve made some fair money fixing (the best one can) the work of people who thought their camera was fully-autoMagic.
J
jjs
Feb 12, 2005
"DaveC" wrote in message
On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 03:02:01 -0800, Mick Brown wrote
(in article ):

Why dont you post a link to the pic and we can have a play with it.

http://home.covad.net/~tmcenter/peninsula/ElderPair

It’s not a complete image, just a portion of it.

WinDoZe here. I right-clicked and it downloaded, then I added the .psd extension and Photoshop found it to be an invalid file. You say the image is Photoshop V2? Holy cow.
R
Rick
Feb 12, 2005
On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 08:37:57 -0800, jjs wrote
(in article ):

I right-clicked and it downloaded, then I added the .psd extension and Photoshop found it to be an invalid file.

How about this:

http://home.covad.net/~tmcenter/peninsula/PSimage.zip

Is there a better format to save this image in? It was originally a jpg, but don’t want to save it in that format again, obviously.

Thanks,

Please, no "Go Google this" replies. I wouldn’t ask a question here if I hadn’t done that already.

DaveC

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R
Rick
Feb 12, 2005
OK, this one works:

http://home.covad.net/~tmcenter/peninsula/PSimage2.zip

It is a Photoshop (not v2.0) file with .psd extension. It should download, unzip, and open fine in PS.

Thanks,

Please, no "Go Google this" replies. I wouldn’t ask a question here if I hadn’t done that already.

DaveC

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B
bogus
Feb 12, 2005
Have you tried an Adjustment Layer with Levels?

DaveC wrote:

OK, this one works:

http://home.covad.net/~tmcenter/peninsula/PSimage2.zip

It is a Photoshop (not v2.0) file with .psd extension. It should download, unzip, and open fine in PS.

Thanks,
H
harrylimey
Feb 12, 2005
I tried some of the methods I mentioned earlier!!
the link is to a 35kb jpeg – hope the link works
Harry
http://community.webshots.com/scripts/editPhotos.fcgi?action =showMyPhoto&albumID=272373935&photoID=272374709&amp ;security=Usjfcn

"DaveC" wrote in message
OK, this one works:

http://home.covad.net/~tmcenter/peninsula/PSimage2.zip

It is a Photoshop (not v2.0) file with .psd extension. It should download, unzip, and open fine in PS.

Thanks,

Please, no "Go Google this" replies. I wouldn’t ask a question here if I hadn’t done that already.

DaveC

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Please reply in the news group
R
Rick
Feb 13, 2005
On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 14:32:18 -0800, Harry Limey wrote
(in article ):

http://community.webshots.com/scripts/editPhotos.fcgi?action =showMyPhoto&album

ID=272373935&photoID=272374709&security=Usjfcn

Hi, Harry,
When I visit the URL I see "You do not appear to be the owner of this album. Be sure you are logged in."

Can non-owners view these images stored there?

Dave

Please, no "Go Google this" replies. I wouldn’t ask a question here if I hadn’t done that already.

DaveC

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T
Tacit
Feb 13, 2005
In article ,
DaveC wrote:

The image seems quite flat. Whenever I attempt to increase brightness or contrast, several areas of highlight immediately "solarize" (saturate?). These seem to be broad areas that reflect the light (a broad forehead, for example).

Are you using the "Brightness/Contrast" command? Don’t.

Brightness/Contrast is a "linear" command. It degrades the image by clipping hilights and/or shadows. As you have discovered, this blows out hilights.

Do not use the Brightness/Contrast command; learn to use the Curves command instead. Everything Brightness/Contrast can do, Curves can do, but Curves is "nonlinear" and won’t cause the problem you’re having.


Art, photography, shareware, polyamory, kink, and more!
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H
harrylimey
Feb 13, 2005
"DaveC" wrote in message
On Sat, 12 Feb 2005 14:32:18 -0800, Harry Limey wrote
(in article ):

http://community.webshots.com/scripts/editPhotos.fcgi?action =showMyPhoto&album
ID=272373935&photoID=272374709&security=Usjfcn

Hi, Harry,
When I visit the URL I see "You do not appear to be the owner of this
album.
Be sure you are logged in."

Can non-owners view these images stored there?

Dave

Try this link

http://community.webshots.com/photo/272373935/272374709Usjfc n
R
Rick
Feb 13, 2005
On Sun, 13 Feb 2005 00:47:37 -0800, Harry Limey wrote
(in article ):

http://community.webshots.com/photo/272373935/272374709Usjfc n

Thanks, Harry. The link works.

Something is very odd re. viewing the image. When I view the image with my web browser, it looks very nice. Likewise when I download it and look at it with my jpg viewer, "Preview" (Mac).

But when I open it in Photoshop, now the saturation in the highlights is back. His forehead is "solarizing" (major saturation).

Why is this? I presume that I’ve got some serious settings issues in PS?

Thanks,

Please, no "Go Google this" replies. I wouldn’t ask a question here if I hadn’t done that already.

DaveC

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Please reply in the news group
H
harrylimey
Feb 13, 2005
"DaveC" wrote in message
Something is very odd re. viewing the image. When I view the image with my web browser, it looks very nice. Likewise when I download it and look at
it
with my jpg viewer, "Preview" (Mac).

But when I open it in Photoshop, now the saturation in the highlights is back. His forehead is "solarizing" (major saturation).
Why is this? I presume that I’ve got some serious settings issues in PS?

Well bearing in mind I compressed the image to 32K so you are not going to get good reproduction, however I opened it in PS and there was no change to the browser preview, and I have no idea why it should be any different in yours!

Harry
R
Rick
Feb 13, 2005
Something is very odd re. viewing the image. When I view the image with my web browser, it looks very nice. Likewise when I download it and look at it with my jpg viewer, "Preview" (Mac).

But when I open it in Photoshop, now the saturation in the highlights is back. His forehead is "solarizing" (major saturation).

A little more data:
The image has no profile associate with it (as received from Harry), PS informs me. When opening the file, I try assigning the Adobe RGB (1998) profile; sRGB profile, and no profile. This does change the visual effect of the saturation, but doesn’t eliminate it (such as viewed in web browser and Preview app).

I tried changing the working color space (Photoshop>Color Settings), and this also changes how the image looks, but does not render the image as saturation-free as does the browser and Preview app.

Also, it looks fine in Preview app, but when I choose Print and in the dialog box click Preview, the print preview image that displays shows the dreaded saturation.

Any ideas would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Please, no "Go Google this" replies. I wouldn’t ask a question here if I hadn’t done that already.

DaveC

This is an invalid return address
Please reply in the news group
H
harrylimey
Feb 13, 2005
"DaveC" wrote in message

A little more data:
The image has no profile associate with it (as received from Harry), PS informs me.

I used the Photoshop ‘save for web function’ to reduce file size and that strips all excess data!!

Send me an email (my address is correct) I will send details of method etc., Harry
P
paul
Feb 13, 2005
An ‘S’ shaped curve will preserve the highlights and increase contrast in the middle ranges. Use a soft eraser on this curve adjustment layer if you need to recover highlights more.

DaveC wrote:

I’ve been given a color jpg image of 475 KB to print. It is a portrait, taken with a FjuiFilm S5000 digital camera in flash mode, indoors, with a dark background but with some bright incandescent ceiling lamps. The image is 960 x 1280 and has an sRGB color space.

The image seems quite flat. Whenever I attempt to increase brightness or contrast, several areas of highlight immediately "solarize" (saturate?). These seem to be broad areas that reflect the light (a broad forehead, for example).

I thought it might be possible to select these areas that are nearly-saturated, invert the selection, and increase brightness and contrast in those areas only.

The only type of selection like this I see is Color Range. I tried this, but I don’t think this will work for me. Is it possible to select areas of the image that are brightest?

Or is there an easier trail I should be going down?

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Photoshop CS 8.0, Mac OS X 10.3.8

Thanks,

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