How to fix bright faces on late afternoon sport shots in CS3

AC
Posted By
Andrew_C_McDonald
Aug 16, 2008
Views
315
Replies
6
Status
Closed
Hi, not having much success fixing bright white faces of people in late afternoon sports photos where the sun is low. The background and people’s clothes are fine, but the faces are an almost featureless white because the sun is almost horizontal and reflects off the faces too brightly. Only the dark outlines of mouth, nose, eyes and eyebrows show up. I have experimented with overall contrast, brightness, exposure, shadows & highlights, as well as lasooing the faces and playing with the burn tool.
Please let me know if you have any other suggestions.
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JJ
John Joslin
Aug 16, 2008
If the faces are really white then there is no pixel information to enhance.

You can check this quickly by temporarily moving the middle slider in Levels over to the right to see what happens.

If there’s nothing in those blown out areas, you could minimise the effect by painting the areas in skin tone with a low opacity brush in Overlay mode.
SC
shan_canfield
Aug 17, 2008
If the pixels are totally white R255,G255,B255 you may have to paint with an airbrush just in Normal mode, as the usual blending modes don’t blend with pure white but I would try this:
Set up a blank transparent layer on top of background. Set this layer blend mode to Darken, set the layer Opacity to around 40%.
Grab an airbrush, option/alt click on nearby skin color to sample it. Then paint over the white area to darken it. I have a little mini tutorial for lightening or darkening skin pixels at the following link. Hope it helps.
Mama Shan

<http://www.photoshopmama.net/forum/index.php?topic=87.0>
AC
Andrew_C_McDonald
Aug 18, 2008
Dear Shan and John,
Many thanks for your suggestions.
Andrew
KK
kenium_kenium
Feb 4, 2009
wtf? ok <http://img8.imageshack.us/my.php?image=bugvd4.jpg> that link copy paste into addres bar.
DM
dave_milbut
Feb 4, 2009
boy! that’s annoying. report it as a bug.
KK
kenium_kenium
Feb 5, 2009
can’t coz i dont know english =( so for this trouble no solutions?

How to Master Sharpening in Photoshop

Give your photos a professional finish with sharpening in Photoshop. Learn to enhance details, create contrast, and prepare your images for print, web, and social media.

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