Recovering highlights . Very impressed.

B

Blacktop

Senior Member
Went out to the river to shoot some action shots of white water rafting . (D500+200-500mm lens)

I was playing with the metering mode as not to blow the whites of the water, but not to under expose the darker areas either. Took a few shots with spot metering, but way over exposed, so I settled on center weight.
Anyway I thought this shot here was going in the trash, but I did want to see if anything was actually recoverable. Wow!!! What a surprise.

This is just SOOC.

_DSC2373.jpg


This one with highlights pulled down all the way, exposure down to -2 and shadows upped all the way in LR

_DSC2373-2.jpg
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
Blacktop said:
Went out to the river to shoot some action shots of white water rafting . (D500+200-500mm lens)

I was playing with the metering mode as not to blow the whites of the water, but not to under expose the darker areas either. Took a few shots with spot metering, but way over exposed, so I settled on center weight.
Anyway I thought this shot here was going in the trash, but I did want to see if anything was actually recoverable. Wow!!! What a surprise.

This is just SOOC.

This one with highlights pulled down all the way, exposure down to -2 and shadows upped all the way in LR
Click to expand...
This is why I use ETTR. It just works.
...
 
B

Blacktop

Senior Member
Horoscope Fish said:
This is why I use ETTR. It just works.
...
Click to expand...
It doesn't work well in some situations, like here for example. Getting the correct exposure of the raging white water would mean everything else would be left in the dark.

This is exactly why I had to take a few test shots before I found the right balance to get the overall exposure to my liking.
I ended up using center weighted metering for the rest of my shots ,which I am satisfied with . Still had to pull highlights down, but not as drastic and nothing was blown really.
 
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Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
Blacktop said:
It doesn't work well in some situations, like here for example. Getting the correct exposure of the raging white water would mean everything else would be left in the dark.
Click to expand...
Exposing for the Highlights would darken the image overall, yes... But ETTR doesn't mean exposing for the Highlights, that's a common misconception. ETTR biases the entire histogram to the right, which means the Mid-tones and Shadows get lifted to a significant degree as well. You would then have the option to pull down the Highlights, Mid-tones and Shadows considerably; far more so than if the shot were exposed based on the Highlights.

In fact in looking at the histogram of the shot you posted it's clear you used ETTR at least in principle whether you knew it or not, and it's why you were able to recover the Highlight detail like you did. Here's your shot opened in Photoshop. You can see how the histogram is heavily biased to the right in every every channel; that's ETTR:
...
ScreenShot.png......Histogram.jpg
...
This shot is a perfect example of why ETTR works.
...
 
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B

Blacktop

Senior Member
Horoscope Fish said:
Exposing for the Highlights would darken the image overall, yes... But ETTR doesn't mean exposing for the Highlights, that's a common misconception. ETTR biases the entire histogram to the right, which means the Mid-tones and Shadows get lifted to a significant degree as well. You would then have the option to pull down the Highlights, Mid-tones and Shadows considerably; far more so than if the shot were exposed based on the Highlights.

In fact in looking at the histogram of the shot you posted it's clear you used ETTR at least in principle whether you knew it or not, and it's why you were able to recover the Highlight detail like you did. Here's your shot opened in Photoshop. You can see how the histogram is heavily biased to the right in every every channel; that's ETTR:
...
View attachment 252080......View attachment 252081
...
This shot is a perfect example of why ETTR works.
...
Click to expand...


Thanks for that lesson on ETTR. I had no idea. I always thought ETTR meant getting the highlights exposed correctly. Obviously I was mistaken in my thinking, as you pointed out that it is a common misconception.

Now, what sort of dark magic did you conjure up to download my image when I have image editing turned off?:confused: (It's fine, I'm glad you did)
 
Horoscope Fish

Horoscope Fish

Senior Member
Blacktop said:
Thanks for that lesson on ETTR. I had no idea. I always thought ETTR meant getting the highlights exposed correctly. Obviously I was mistaken in my thinking, as you pointed out that it is a common misconception.
Click to expand...
You're very welcome. If you want to learn more about ETTR Nasim has one of the best, most balanced explanations in his article, Exposing to the Right Explained.

...
Blacktop said:
Now, what sort of dark magic did you conjure up to download my image when I have image editing turned off?:confused: (It's fine, I'm glad you did)
Click to expand...
Well I'll come clean and tell you no eye of newt nor wing of bat was required because unfortunately setting the editing option to "NO" in your profile here on Nikonites only updates what displays beneath your avatar as an indicator to others who might want to suggest how to better edit a photo you've posted that they not do that (at least not without your permission); but from what I can tell it doesn't actually DO anything that prevents someone who knows how from... uh... "borrowing" your posted image for whatever reason. *cough* I don't normally go into detail about to acquire someones photo from this site because... well... I just don't think that's information that needs to be posted, I guess. It's certainly not uncommon knowledge or some Big Secret, I just choose not to talk about it. I do apologize for not looking to see if that option had been set to "NO" on your profile bar because I do respect that when considering posting an edited version of someones image.
.....
 
B

Blacktop

Senior Member
Horoscope Fish said:
You're very welcome. If you want to learn more about ETTR Nasim has one of the best, most balanced explanations in his article, Exposing to the Right Explained.

...

Well I'll come clean and tell you no eye of newt nor wing of bat was required because unfortunately setting the editing option to "NO" in your profile here on Nikonites only updates what displays beneath your avatar as an indicator to others who might want to suggest how to better edit a photo you've posted that they not do that (at least not without your permission); but from what I can tell it doesn't actually DO anything that prevents someone who knows how from... uh... "borrowing" your posted image for whatever reason. *cough* I don't normally go into detail about to acquire someones photo from this site because... well... I just don't think that's information that needs to be posted, I guess. It's certainly not uncommon knowledge or some Big Secret, I just choose not to talk about it. I do apologize for not looking to see if that option had been set to "NO" on your profile bar because I do respect that when considering posting an edited version of someones image.
.....
Click to expand...

I knew it! It was time travel and you can't talk about it without violating the temporal prime directive.:encouragement:
 
B

Blacktop

Senior Member
Horoscope Fish said:
Well that's just GREAT! Now I want a meatloaf... I said "a" meatloaf, not Meatloaf.




/Did that need to be said?
//Just so we're clear.
//Calling the wife...
Click to expand...
You may just given me an idea to name my d500. Meatloaf..You know..Bat Out Of Hell....

Sent from my VS985 4G using Tapatalk
 
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