Work with Raw files
Here, the camera has exposed
for the highlights, losing detail in the
under–exposed shadows. By shooting
and editing in Raw format we can
make more effective selective tonal
adjustment in the Camera Raw editor.Analyze the
histogram
Here the camera has metered to
capture the landscape’s darker details,
making the bright sky overexposed. The
graph’s clumped to the right, showing
the presence of very bright highlights.Reveal missing
details
Boost the Exposure slider — this reveals
some shadow detail but blows out the
highlights. Drag Highlights left to restore
detail in brightest areas. Drag Shadows
right to recover more shadow detail.Adjust highlights
If we darken the shot to recover
sky detail, we’ll plunge the shadows into
silhouette. For selective tonal tweaks
choose Enhance > Adjust Lighting >
Shadows/Highlights. Push Darken
Highlights right to claw back sky detail.Boost color
When you brighten up under–
exposed shadows the colors in these
areas tend to look drab. Drag the
Vibrancy slider to the right. This helps
boost colors such as blues and greens
without over–saturating skin tones.Selective tweaks
The overexposed highlights at
the far right of the histogram will slide
left to indicate they’ve been darkened.
You can then selectively lighten
shadows. The Midtone Contrast slider
helps you fine–tune the tonal balance.
METERING MODES
Avoid exposure problems
You can help your camera to produce a more balanced exposure by manually
setting its metering mode to suit various lighting scenarios. This can save you the
hassle of having to fix exposure problems in Elements. On a Nikon camera, Matrix
metering reads the entire scene and then chooses an average exposure setting to
try and capture detail in the shadows and highlights. A Canon camera uses
Evaluative metering to do the same job. In high–contrast scenes you can use Spot
metering to prioritize the exposure to capture detail in a bright sky.HOW TO Restore detail in high–contrast scenes
HOW TO Fix an overexposed shot
How to do anything on your Mac, iPhone & iPad
Image rights: Adobe. maclife.com DEC 2019 85