# Can I rescue horribly over-exposed pictures?



## Babs

Just as the title says really!

I was out today and took a good few snaps before realising my camera was on the wrong setting and all the pictures were being over-exposed :gah: Some of them could be really nice too!

Such a rookie mistake and I'm feeling very annoyed with myself right now! :thumbdown: Question is ... can I rescue them?!

I have Photoshop CS2 and a trial version of Lightroom 3.2. Where do I start?!


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## MohaimenK

hmm can u post the pic? Usually no, because the info is lost in those  spots....u can do more with an underexposed image than over exposed


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## mwcfarms

Lightroom can save over/under exposed by 2 full stops if you shot in raw I believe.


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## MohaimenK

mwcfarms said:


> Lightroom can save over/under exposed by 2 full stops if you shot in raw I believe.


 
Even if there's no data?? White's usually blank data if I am not mistaken?


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## Overread

If you took the shots in RAW mode you have a chance at saving some of the overexposure - just load the shots into the RAW processor and pull the exposure slider to the left to lower the shots overall exposure. However its only a small buffer and totally overexposed areas will simply be pure white with no details to restore. 

If you've shot in JPEG you can try to lower the brightness of the shot to show up details -but again if its pure white that is all you will have sadly.


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## Babs

Here's one of the pics:



http://www.flickr.com/photos/_babs_/5062810550/

It's not total "nothingness" but as you can see, it's pretty bad (this should be a flock of geese landing on a lake).  Unfortunately I'm not shooting in RAW as this was on "P" mode only (I'm just learning) and I don't think you can have JPEG+RAW set up on "P" mode.

Thanks for any help. Hopefully this is the kind of mistake you only do once!


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## lyonsroar

Well that's frustrating.
:thumbdown:

I want to see a photoshop guru go at these.  I can't see a whole lot being saved though.  Bummer.


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## JG_Coleman

mwcfarms said:


> Lightroom can save over/under exposed by 2 full stops if you shot in raw I believe.


 
A popular statistic... but one that leads to many misconceptions. It really depends on just how over-exposed the image was at the time of capture.

Areas that are blown out pure white aren't recoverable under _any_ circumstance... because there is nothing to recover. What will happen oftentimes is that Lightroom will pull back details surrounding the pure white areas, but merely turn the pure white highlights grey (for example, using the Recovery slider). To boot, the areas immediately surrounding the blown out highlight, while admittedly revealing some detail, will exhibit ugly posterization that cannot be fixed. Again, this occurs because there is minimal available data for staging the recovery.

I would agree that Lightroom can save photos that are over-exposed by 2 stops... _but a shot can over-exposed a good deal without actually blowing out highlights_.

Blown highlights are blown... they really can't be saved.


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## Robin Usagani

Not sure how one can overexposed something that much (not involving flash or additional lights). I've overexposed images like that, but I realized it after a couple of shots because I put it at the wrong setting.  Do you even look at the meter? Dont use the manual if you dont know how. Just saying...


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## peacock

Woah, that is more than over-exposed! Unfortunately, if you have shot all of your pics in JPEG, then most of them are probably non-fixable. But I'm quite sure you can shoot jpeg+raw in P mode, so is in Tv, Av and M. 

Here is the most I could do:






Basically, there's nothing you could do about the white areas, because they're purely white in the first place and contain no details. 

Don't you normally review your photos after you've taken them?


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## Babs

Schwettylens said:


> Not sure how one can overexposed something that much (not involving flash or additional lights). I've overexposed images like that, but I realized it after a couple of shots because I put it at the wrong setting.  Do you even look at the meter? Dont use the manual if you dont know how. Just saying...



As I said, I am still learning. I took my first DSLR photo 4 weeks ago, so I don't think I'm doing too badly - these photos aside.  I check the screen after every picture I take (excepting something like these geese landing where I take a few in quick succession) but it was a particularly sunny day so I initially thought the image not showing up clearly was due to the sun reflecting off the screen. It's the first time I've been out in sunny conditions so I didn't know how the pictures on the screen would look.  I'm not using full manual either. I had been playing around with the apperture priority "Av" mode yesterday taking some pictures indoors and the camera was still on this setting when I started taking these (sorry - not "P" as I previously said).

It's a stupid mistake to make, but I'm sure you made some stupid mistakes in the beginning too! And isn't that how you learn in any case?!

Maybe I can't retrieve anything, and if not it's a shame. But it's a lesson learned and I won't do it again (for a while anyway  )


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## Robin Usagani

Thats what I was saying. . If you had it on AV.. your camera shouldnt take photos way overexposed like that unless your built in flash is popped up so the camera cant go faster than 1/200.


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## itf

if you took these in av, shouldnt the camera meter for you? it shouldn't be that overexposed.


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## SrBiscuit

damn thats a rough one.
i dont think much is gonna come outta that.


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## Overread

Even in AV/TV you can still overexpose if the settings are set incorrectly (eg using exposure compensation to overexpose)

When it comes to the LCD viewing however I strongly recommend reading in your manual to find out how to display the histogram when you review shots. The histogram is a fantastic tool and quite simple to learn to use - essentially is a barchart that shows you the distribution of the brightness in your shot - with pure black at the far right and pure white at the far left of the scale.

Thus when you review a shot with the histogram showing - such as for the shots above - you would see a strong peek at the right side of the graph and (with most DSLRs) the preview image in this mode will also blink black and white in the overexposed areas to mark them for you. That makes it much easier to see where and how much you've overexposed (or underexposed ) a shot.
Furthermore the chart has vertical lines - each line being one stop of light so it can give you an idea of how much over/under you have to play with. 

It should be noted that between the over/under exposure end limits there is no set shape to a histogram that you should aim to get. The shape will be whatever it is at that time - however one trick with digital is to try and get as much of the main "bulge" of the values on the right side (without of course hitting the far right side) since this gives you the most light data to work with. It is of course not always possible, as in the case of the geese for example you might not be able to get more on the right without slowing the shutter speed- and thus risking motion blur. But whilst its not always possible its a good method to understand and be able to make use of.


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## GeneralBenson

JG_Coleman said:


> mwcfarms said:
> 
> 
> 
> Lightroom can save over/under exposed by 2 full stops if you shot in raw I believe.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> A popular statistic... but one that leads to many misconceptions. It really depends on just how over-exposed the image was at the time of capture.
> 
> Areas that are blown out pure white aren't recoverable under _any_ circumstance... because there is nothing to recover. What will happen oftentimes is that Lightroom will pull back details surrounding the pure white areas, but merely turn the pure white highlights grey (for example, using the Recovery slider). To boot, the areas immediately surrounding the blown out highlight, while admittedly revealing some detail, will exhibit ugly posterization that cannot be fixed. Again, this occurs because there is minimal available data for staging the recovery.
> 
> I would agree that Lightroom can save photos that are over-exposed by 2 stops... _but a shot can over-exposed a good deal without actually blowing out highlights_.
> 
> Blown highlights are blown... they really can't be saved.
Click to expand...


Correct. The recovery slider in Lightroom can bring thing back from the very edge of blown out, but once they are blown, there's no getting them back. Even if one of the color channels, and sometime even if two, are blown out, but there is detail in the other channels, the REcovery slider can use that info to somewhat rebuild the info of the missing channels. It's very useful for control images with hot spots or uncontrolled highlights, but they still need to have info within them for Lightroom to wrangle the highlights back in.


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## Babs

I'm trying to think now what the camera settings were on! The EXIF data is showing as aperture priority at f/1.8 with exposure of 1/4000 sec.  The flash didn't pop up or go off.

Thanks for the info on the histogram info, overread. I'm getting the hang of histograms as I've been looking at pics in Lightroom and the histogram comes up automatically, so that's making me understand them a bit more.  So yes, I'll have a look and see how to display it on the LCD screen.

I also have a copy of "Understanding Exposure" which got delivered yesterday. I think I should try and read it this weekend!! :lmao:


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## kundalini

If a pixel has gone to 255, there is nothing to recover.  In Lightroom, you can recover some photos that are greatly overexposed without blowing by using the sliders.

For example, I was on a site visit and just threw the camera to my eye, hit focus and snapped.  Didn't even look at the meter, just for the focus dot.  

Overread subscribes to the Histogram setting for his LCD display.  I, on the other hand, like the Highlights setting.  After the snap, I chimped the LCD and saw that most of my displayed image was blinking madly.  Of course, then you adjust and watch the meter.  

*This was the shot SOOC*.

Since I took another shot, I was going to recycle the shot, but decided to play whether anything could be salvaged.  I tweaked the sliders in Lightroom.

*This was the recovery*.


At least now the image is useable for documentation.


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## Overread

Interesting point Kundalini - I think with Canon the highlights setting you describe (with the blinking highlights) comes along with the histogram only as opposed to nikon its seems which displays the two independently from what you say.

ps you got far more out of that shot than I would have thought possible!


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## Robin Usagani

Yeah... I like that setting kundalini.  I kept my review setting to that now.


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## karia

Such a shame Babs...looks like a great shot in the making from Peacock's work up.

Good question to ask for all of us still willing to learn.


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## kundalini

Overread said:


> Interesting point Kundalini - I think with Canon the highlights setting you describe (with the blinking highlights) comes along with the histogram only as opposed to nikon its seems which displays the two independently from what you say.!


For me, it is akin to reading a digital clock to know the time instead of looking at an analog clock to see what time it is.  Another reason for me is that my eyes are old, I don't like to have my glasses on while shooting (or anything else I don't HAVE to have them) and I find that I usually can't see the image on the LCD while outdoors, but I can see the blinking.



Overread said:


> ps you got far more out of that shot than I would have thought possible!


Thanks, I was impressed with the lens correction tool.  First time I've really played with it.


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## DerekSalem

I actually had a similar situation once at the zoo. For no reason at all I didn't realize I was shooting at f/8 all day. That's usually not a problem except 1/3 of the day I was indoors and wondering why I was at ISO3200 and 1/100 and still underexposed. I felt like an idiot when I realized it. Thankfully, saved most of the pictures since I shot them all in RAW and it wasn't *too* far underexposed


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## LittleItaly

Isn't there a way to open your Jpeg files in the RAW editor??


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## GeneralBenson

LittleItaly said:


> Isn't there a way to open your Jpeg files in the RAW editor??



Yes, Lightroom and Aperture will process Jpegs as well as RAW. But hte advantage of the programs isn't the program themselves (as awesome as they are), it's the RAW format that makes it so powerful.

So yes, you can edit jpegs in LR, but you won't get those kind of results. You'll just get lots of jpeg artifacts if you try to push things too far. WIth a jpeg, all the info the LR is recovering from those RAW images, has already been thrown out, and doesn't exist anymore.


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## LarryD

It's always a bummer to lose photos........  But, there are plenty more out there to take...

Av is a great mode to be in and I encourage your use of it...  However, to use it properly, you need to always look and set the f-stop to what you want it to be.............  Of course, at f 1.8, no shutter will be fast enough to give you proper exposure, and that is what happened here... the camera shot as fast as it could (1/4000), but that f1.8 simply let in too much light...

Outside, on a sunny day, set the f-stop to a sensible f8 or f16, and this will never happen again...........


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## KmH

LittleItaly said:


> Isn't there a way to open your Jpeg files in the RAW editor??


In ACR yes, but a JPEG has already discarded 80% of the image's original color data, and converted the image into 64 pixel (8x8 pixel square) MCU block (Minimum Coded Unit), that become the smallest image part you can edit.

Additionally, though the image was originally recored in a 12-bit depth(4096 tonal variations) or a 14-bit depth (16,384 tonal variations), JPEG only has an 8-bit depth (256 tonal variations).

JPEG is a final, ready-for-print format, and has very little bit depth headroom for editing.

JPEG - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

RAW vs. JPEG


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