Fix an Underexposed Photo in Photoshop

[@GrahamHartle]

Yet another great tutorial Blake. There seems to have been a lot of comments posted around various social media forums and online photography sites, trying to make out that digital photography is somehow inferior to traditional film photography, and that any kind of post-processing is really just cheating. I tend to disagree with that view. I firmly believe that photography is an art form, and so it is down to the artist to decide how he/she wants their image to look. I do understand that there is a difference between artistic photography and documentary photography, and most of the recent debate seems to stem from the decision by Reuters to ban the use of RAW files. Quite frankly I wouldn't shoot jpeg. Actually enjoy processing my images, and your tutorials have given me a great insight into different techniques that can be employed to get the most out of my images. Thank you, and keep up the great work.

[@f64Academy]

Yeah I've seen them to and this was sorry of a reaction. The way I see it there are photographers and artists. Photographers are generally technicians of the craft with a limited scope of artistic inclusion in there work. There is nothing wrong with this! Then there are artists who care less about the technical stuff and more about the act of creating. Therefore, they will push the artistic limits of a photo to make it what they want without the fear of worrying about what is politically correct with pot post processing.

[@markdemarte6744]

Oh my gosh, what a fantastic tutorial. So much info. I'll be watching this one 10 -15x before I can get all the notes taken from this jam-packed session. I've been into photograhy for many years, but only recently have I developed an interest in color. this video has just the kind of info I need and have been looking for. Thanks so much, Blake.

[@stevedirector4644]

Blake - this is a terrific tutorial. Two of things things that were particularly well illustrated was how to modify the graduated filter mask by using the brush within the filter tool - I have not realized you could do that - and how to effectively use split toning. Thank you!

[@f64Academy]

+Steve Director Awesome. I am very glad you got some good takeaways here. Split Toning in ACR or Lr is the best way to Color Grade like you would in Photoshop.

[@scottjohnson9901]

Simply the best vid I've seen on using Camera RAW (also totally applicable to doing the same job in Lightroom). Thanks.

[@f64Academy]

Sweeeet! Thanks for watching!

[@elexled2328]

Thank for such a simple explanation of complicated material it is wonderful

[@f64Academy]

My pleasure!

[@nchakravarthy1]

Beautifully explained. Thanks. I do also agree that an artist has the liberty to modify his creation just as poets have the leeway in language. Thanks again. Nifty video.

[@f64Academy]

+naveen chakravarthy Awesome! Thanks for that analogy, it describes it on point!

[@davet3530]

Great tutorial Blake. I agree with your analogy of the RAW file being a digital negative, and your comments about interpreting the scene as you saw it. One of the great benefits of shooting RAW is that you always have the original file to go back to. With the advances in software over the years along with better knowledge of how to use it (thanks in part to people like yourself), I can go back to RAW files taken ten years ago and produce a better image than I did the first time around. Had they been JPEG files that data wouldn't have been available to work with.

[@poweilin]

This is simple and easy to follow video and it covers pretty much everything we should know about ACR. Thank You for sharing. ❤️

[@f64Academy]

Thanks! I appreciate your feedback!

[@jeffreybowen1851]

Really well done. Your innovations with color, tone, and luminance are distinctive and outstanding. You have become my favorite post processing resource on You Tube!

[@f64Academy]

Woohoo!!! Thanks for the awesome feedback.

[@taterandy3958]

In

[@louiegroenewald]

Signed up yesterday on your site and looking forward to all the good stuff coming soon. Only a few months into photography and trying to grab all the training I can get. Well done for providing top notch tutorials that is very user friendly and easy to follow

[@f64Academy]

Awesome! Welcome to the party :-)

[@RuediGisiger]

your tutorials are simply the best. Thank you Blake.

[@f64Academy]

You are welcome! Thanks for watching.

[@jdeso3]

Thanks for your hard work making these videos. I have learned a lot from them. I have been into photography and photoshop for a long time, but there is always more to learn or a better way to do it.

[@f64Academy]

+Joe Deso You are correct! Every time I go into Photoshop I teach myself something new. 16 years of experience is childs play in Ps, that's for sure!

[@thomastuorto9929]

As always, another great vid! Integrity is for journalism or, promised delivered as is IMHO. To each their own.

[@jgreg82]

Brilliant. Ive only just discovered your videos in last few days but Im now gradually working my way through them lol. You explain things in such a clear and precise manner. Thankyou Blake

[@f64Academy]

Thanks so much. It's really my pleasure 😁

[@janeandrew2636]

Excellent video full of useful tips, Blake. Great stuff. Your videos just get better and better.

[@f64Academy]

Thanks! They get more and more fun to produce also!

[@josiejackson1239]

Definitely saved this to my tutorials. Explained really well. I always shoot in RAW but have learned a heap more by watching this, thanks Blake... :)

[@ImagesbyGretchen]

Great tutorial! One of the best explanation and how to use half tones I've seen.

[@BlakeRudis]

Awesome! Thanks for watching and for the feedback,

[@AnVoPhotography]

Awesome tutorial. So much to learn from this one. Thank you for sharing.

[@f64Academy]

+An Vo Awesome! Thanks so much. I appreciate the feedback and you taking the time to watch it.

[@sajjadal-lawati3133]

Than you very much ..this is so powerful video in processing RAW images....so much information...enjoyed every bit of it

[@f64Academy]

Awesome, thanks for watching!

[@65yorkie]

Very informative video, thanks. This is the first of your videos I've seen and it impressed me enough to make me subscribe immediately. looking forward to seeing more of your tutorials.

[@f64Academy]

+Keith Blanshard Awesome! Thanks for subscribing Keith. If you really want to get up to speed head over to EverydayHDR.com and join the mailing list. I send out an updated email every Friday of what's new on the site and new videos just like this. Every Friday there is a new tutorial.

[@abrahamgebru8919]

That was great Blake. My second time to view it, today I got your point. Thanks

[@f64Academy]

Awesome! Glad it helped :)

[@JayDowney]

Excellent stuff as usual. I have always shot RAW and a stop or two under "center" in the camera's meter when shooting a single shot. All looking ahead to post. So much "safer" and more control than over exposed.

[@f64Academy]

That is a good rule to live by with newer camera sensors. My old Olympus would have hated me for that, noise city! The 6D is pretty good with that notion though.

[@JayDowney]

true, i started with a 60d, do by then noise was pretty well controlled

[@MrRedvers01]

reinvigorated my love of the image

[@f64Academy]

Yessss!

[@tosemete5924]

Very useful! One of the best tutorial I’ve seen so far

[@f64Academy]

woohoo! thanks for watching!

[@audimackid]

Another excellent tutorial. Thanks. Question. Perhaps you have covered this before. I notice that when you do your RAW conversion in ACR, you are always working in the Adobe RGB color space. Why Adobe RGB and not a larger color space such as the ProPhoto RGB? Do you use Adobe RGB when creating videos to be posted online?

[@848bbc]

Wow, I will be using your info on some of those images that I have in my junk-file for sure. Greatstuff , thanks!

[@f64Academy]

+Mike Melendez Awesome! Salvage them, I know they are worth it.

[@kiranrai2785]

Thank you, learnt so much that I never knew before. My underexposed picture looks outstanding. However I cannot print on my Epson 7800 stylus pro, only a small strip comes out. Could it be picture size that went from 40mb to 300mb? Any solution to my problem? Using Windows 10.Thanks. Kiran

[@kelvinraytech]

Thanks for sharing it out.. Great tutorial Blake.

[@f64Academy]

+kelvinraytech Sweet! Glad you are going to get a lot out of it!

[@stevevickers2844]

Great video. Why don't you use Lightroom? I understand the issue with the same engine but I would really like to know your reasoning for using the raw filter in Photoshop.

[@f64Academy]

+steve vickers I own CC but do not have Lightroom installed. It is a personal decision. I call Lightroom a rhinestone crutch for innovation. Nothing against anyone who uses it at all, but I know if I use Lr, I will spend less time in Ps. If I spend less time in Ps I will spend less time innovating on my processes. In the end, Lr and ACR are very similar so i use ACR because it ports right into Ps. Again this is all very personal.

[@FredNunu]

Thanks Blake, for this nice tutorial

[@HarryVitebski]

Excellent tutorial! One question. I see quite substantial noise added with editing. Do you use any noise correction plugins with final image, after you finish the editing process?

[@f64Academy]

+Harry Vitebski Hello Harry, I do you noise correction software like DeNoise and such. However, it may sound odd, but I don't concern myself as much with Noise anymore as I used to. I printed this image rater large and the noise was negligible at best. The thing about noise is we get o caught up now with these smooth images, but when you look back at film, ISO 800 film was known for its "lovely grain". what we called grain back in the day is now referred to as noise in many cases. My main concern with noise reduction is color noise. I will remove the color blotchy noise, but will typically do a mild noise reduction to retain detail and invite the lovely grain. That being said, I don't often find myself in situations where the ISO exceeds 3200 on my 6D. Even at 3200 the image is still relatively usable and not over taken by noise. It all depends on your camera sensor and its sensitivity to noise at higher ISO's.

[@joecolletti]

Wow! If you showed me that edited image first, I'd *never* guess the state it was in before you started working. Thanks for a great video. I'm curious-- what lens and resolution were you working with?

[@bondsboy]

Thanks man, there are some really good tips in here.

[@sizefive]

I will be watching this video a lot. Great video.

[@markharris5771]

Brilliant as always.

[@f64Academy]

:) I appreciate it!

[@neckbreakerb]

I like your use of split toning on a sunset pic. I've been trying to bring out magenta in my sunset shots, but I don't always get the best results. I'm going to take a stab at this technique.

[@f64Academy]

+Joe Baker Sweet! Yeah the split toning on an image is critical for that Pop. Kinda like when you Color Grade your videos. You would probably never put the stock footage out because you know that you can create the mood of the scene with the color. Same thing here.

[@ziyasefikatun4138]

Very helpful, explained very well. Thank you.

[@elviranikolova2443]

it's great, thanks SO much! i have only arrived intuitively to the part before the graduated filter and now I actually understand what the other things are actually purposed for :-) as to the jpeg -> raw, I myself felt quite sorry because when I did a roadtrip through the Balkans, i shot in jpeg only because i wanted to save space. and now the result is not so artistic as it could have been, so SHOOT IN RAW! and buy a second memory card :-)

[@FluidityTheVaper]

do you have raw image file packs that we can use to try out with your tutorials so we can learn by experience?

[@gabrielkoh7488]

Best tutorials in youtube ever! love 'em

[@hemantpatil7558]

Many thanks for yet another great video...

[@amitabhmukherjee4954]

Excellent demonstration

[@JulesMoyaert_photo]

You are GOOD!!! Very good! Thank you!

[@f64Academy]

My pleasure!

[@joebrennan1272]

Great Tutorial Blake.

[@ayechapin1]

This video is so easy to follow.

[@f64Academy]

Glad you think so!

[@jeanmichelmarchal8115]

Well done, blake!

[@f64Academy]

Thank you!

[@toyarj37]

When I first started, this stuff just blew my mind bc in post it's no longer photography and most of the images you see are so heavily edited it's not reminiscent of what you shot.

[@f64Academy]

That could be true, but why does that have to be negative. Photography is nothing more than a form of artistic expression, can't the artist express themself how they see fit using the medium to its maximum potential?

[@toyarj37]

+f64 Academy not a negative it just shocked me bc I thought I would be able to buy a camera to take a picture I saw or go to a place that actually looked like the photo. Maybe it should have a different space like digital painting and photography is just the canvas.

[@f64Academy]

+toyarj37 ah! Okay thanks for the clarification. More often than not the camera does not see what our eye does. Our eye is capable of over 20 stops of dynamic range in a scene and can adapt as the scene changes.Our cameras only capture an instance of one stop with the ability to manipulate the other 12-14 dependent upon your camera in post. I will agree some manipulation goes too far, but my eye saw the rocks and the sunset in this photo where the camera saw an instance of one stop. I did exaggerate the color though :-)

[@CaptainVelveeta]

Hey! Can anyone help me? There used to be an app that did this on Android...if I remember correctly it took the underexposed pic and "overexposed it", then blended the two to create a perfectly exposed photo...anyone know what this app might be called?

[@aaronstaana]

Thanks!!!! Good thing I shoot in raw.

[@Eigil_Skovgaard]

0:30 I think this image is a typical - if not normal - example of a photo exposed correctly to the right. It looks like the typical consequence of - "expose for the highlights" - very useful rule when it's important not to clip the sky. With the exposure range of modern sensors it's no problem to "recover" the shadows. In fact most of the time it's not a question of recovering anything - it's all there - all we need is to lighten up the shadows. The method is not optimal, it leads to noise in the dark areas, but noise has also become more easy to manage with raw converters like ACR. If I want to exclude any noise, I stack a number of exposures (most often just two). Oh, now I see this video is from 2015. That's probably why your adjustments are business as usual in 2020.

[@f64Academy]

Yep,in 2015 this was kind of an anomaly to get out of an image. Nowadays with technology and raw processors being exponentially better it is business as usual, but it is still important to expose correctly :)

[@MohabKhaled]

Great dude!

[@RicheUK]

Great informative video!!, Cheers

[@f64Academy]

Thanks! Cheers to you as well :-)

[@dwhighres]

DON"T BLINK and definitely pay attention -- because during this casual resurrection of an underexposed photo and the mind warping freedom Mr. Rudis bestows on us in his landmark: Natural HDR with Tone Mapping in Adobe Camera Raw -- you'll soon realize WHY shooting RAW is an absolute necessity.

[@f64Academy]

+David Wilder thanks! I love your review 😁 I agree too, RAW is the key!

[@f64Academy]

+David Wilder thanks! I love your review 😁 I agree too, RAW is the key!

[@acelane3241]

You are shot on in this video Blake Raw shot like Film work in bring out the best of the image.

[@MrGeo961]

Another positive from me....thank you.

[@rickb6029]

Art means never to have to say you're sorry.

[@ali_artist9034]

do you know what, you are awesome buddy thank you very much

[@f64Academy]

Gee thanks! :-) you are not so bad yourself!

[@ali_artist9034]

Hahaha so i'm a little bad?!!!! -_-

[@f64Academy]

Even the best of us are a little bad :-)

[@ali_artist9034]

True Wish you all the best in your life Thanx again for the tutorial

[@f64Academy]

Thank you very much for that. I appreciate it, the very best to you as well, my friend!

[@nollywoodplayer7479]

Good tutorial

[@f64Academy]

Thank you my friend!

[@karistrand3673]

that 14 bits got spanked bro! lol thank you for the tutorial

[@f64Academy]

Haha! I love it, they sure did!

[@RossMacfarlane25]

In Photoshop? or somewhere else????

[@f64Academy]

Adobe Camera Raw

[@cattyblue21]

How did u get to camera raw? thanks

[@f64Academy]

on TIFFs and RAWs it opens automatically in Photoshop, you can also use it as a filter in Photoshop.

[@cattyblue21]

+f64 Academy am so confused, am new to all of this. when I open my photoshop. ...u r saying am already in raw?

[@f64Academy]

+EmmyKnowsBeauty no, ACR is the RAW processing engine inside Photoshop that is used to edit RAW images and Tiff images. You can also use it as a filter in Photoshop CC

[@cattyblue21]

+f64 Academy okay, will try to figure it out because I have photoshop cc. Thanks for your help.

[@f64Academy]

+EmmyKnowsBeauty you'll get there, it takes time, practice, and most importantly, patience!

[@Supermanohman]

And I'm sitting here thinking I actually kinda like the first underexposed image. I love a black foreground with the sky... :\

[@f64Academy]

+Vic Vinegar I agree if the sky is the most important aspect of the photo, here it is not the focal point

[@Supermanohman]

f64 Academy Yeah that makes sense. I have a lot of underexposed photos of the sky from bracketing and sometimes the underexposed image looks just amazing.

[@tomandalbert]

The darkroom cheating? Wow would Ansel Adams or Andrew J. Russel gone along with that?

[@f64Academy]

The point wasn't to call the darkroom cheating, but to discuss that even some things people call cheating today were being done in darkrooms ages ago by the masters.

[@samsargdong1135]

Hi, I've found very interesting and clever the way you've recovered the shadows and highlights in the photo. However, I think you've gone too far with the hue chosen in split toning. Anyway,thanks for your video and I'll go on watching your new posts.