Trying to remove or tone down sunlight on large rocks

[RickyO]

I'm still learning.

I have an image of some landscaping boulders, see attachment.  As you can see, the sunlight reflects quite brightly on them; far too much for the shot.

What is a way(s) to correct just the rocks or area of the rocks without effecting the rest of the image?  The problem probably started with how I photographed the shot, but it was the only angle that would work, and the time of day was not of my making.

(The image is a jpeg, simply because the file size of the afp file is far too large to send along.  I want to do the work in Photo, so assume any instruction offered will be done as such.)  If there is an accurate YouTube or similar video, it works for me.

Thanks in advance.

[Dan C]

Hi @RickyO,

Sorry to hear you're having trouble! Perhaps one option here would be to use a Shadows and Highlights Adjustment layer, as this allows you to selectively target the highlights of the rock and attempts to reduce the harshness, as shown in my below screen recording -

If you find this is affecting too much of the rest of your image,then before creating the adjustment layer, use your preferred selection tool to create a selection around the rocks (it doesn't have to be precise) and then create the adjustment - this will Mask the adjustment to only affect the image within your selection area.

I hope this helps

[dominik]

2 hours ago, RickyO said:

What is a way(s) to correct just the rocks or area of the rocks without effecting the rest of the image?  The problem probably started with how I photographed the shot, but it was the only angle that would work, and the time of day was not of my making.

Hi @RickyO,

my first try in Affiity Photo would be to choose 'Select > Tonal Range > Select Highlights' and see how that works. To better judge the selection it helps to hit Q (= quick mask) to turn on a ruby overlay.
That should work with your photo already pretty well.

I see one major problem with this particular shot. A lot of the bright areas are pure white due to over exposure and even if you tone them down they will not show any texture. They will just turn grey. You could copy in some texture from some other photo if you have one.

If you want to learn some more about selecting tonal ranges you might watch this video tutorial (this is just one way on how to go about it but I think its pretty clever):

 

Cheers,
d.

[RickyO]

20 minutes ago, Dan C said:

Hi @RickyO,

Sorry to hear you're having trouble! Perhaps one option here would be to use a Shadows and Highlights Adjustment layer, as this allows you to selectively target the highlights of the rock and attempts to reduce the harshness, as shown in my below screen recording -

If you find this is affecting too much of the rest of your image,then before creating the adjustment layer, use your preferred selection tool to create a selection around the rocks (it doesn't have to be precise) and then create the adjustment - this will Mask the adjustment to only affect the image within your selection area.

I hope this helps

Thank You for the Extremely FAST response.  Will give it a run.

Thanks again!

[thomaso]

stones.afphoto

1. auto-selection of the highlights:

2. masked adjustment layers:

3. paint on the mask of the adjustments to partially fine-tune them according to the image content, e.g. reduce the mask for the yellowish WB on the bluish stones. Or exclude the gras from the noise adjustment.

10 hours ago, RickyO said:

the time of day was not of my making.

An underexposed photo is usually easier to repair than an overexposed one because highlights loose their image information faster than shadows. In case of the stones the missing info was added by noise which works well because of their similar structure. It wouldn't have worked on a different texture, like for instance a glossy, overexposed wooden surface which shows rather stripes than a pixelated structure.

[lacerto]

(...)

[lepr]

1 hour ago, Lagarto said:

Shadows & Highlight Live filter (instead of Shadows & Highlights Adjustment)

Shadows/Highlights Adjustment is an abomination LOL

[RickyO]

22 hours ago, Dan C said:

Hi @RickyO,

Sorry to hear you're having trouble! Perhaps one option here would be to use a Shadows and Highlights Adjustment layer, as this allows you to selectively target the highlights of the rock and attempts to reduce the harshness, as shown in my below screen recording -

If you find this is affecting too much of the rest of your image,then before creating the adjustment layer, use your preferred selection tool to create a selection around the rocks (it doesn't have to be precise) and then create the adjustment - this will Mask the adjustment to only affect the image within your selection area.

I hope this helps

Thanks!  it gets me closer, but not quite there.  Appreciated.

[RickyO]

22 hours ago, dominik said:

Hi @RickyO,

my first try in Affiity Photo would be to choose 'Select > Tonal Range > Select Highlights' and see how that works. To better judge the selection it helps to hit Q (= quick mask) to turn on a ruby overlay.
That should work with your photo already pretty well.

I see one major problem with this particular shot. A lot of the bright areas are pure white due to over exposure and even if you tone them down they will not show any texture. They will just turn grey. You could copy in some texture from some other photo if you have one.

If you want to learn some more about selecting tonal ranges you might watch this video tutorial (this is just one way on how to go about it but I think its pretty clever):

 

Cheers,
d.

Indeed, very helpful!  Due to your choice of verbiage, I actually found my issue by fiddling with some of the adjustment layers I had produced.  (In this case, "less is greater than more".)  It's an example of implementation of multi-variable calculus.... 

The video is a bit above my pay grade; but I was due a promotion.

Thanks again.

[JimmyJack]

@RickyO instead of trying to pull back basically lost data, you could try introducing new texture info. I grabbed the first two pics I found of "rocks" and nested them inside the (refined) highlights selection. (Try to find imagery close to the right scale and with similar pixel quality to minimize fiddling about)

Play with layering and blends. I did it quickly with broad imagery and let the textures fall where they may. You can get a specific as you like/need (I did pay a little attention to one specific rock....).

cheers.

[RickyO]

27 minutes ago, JimmyJack said:

@RickyO instead of trying to pull back basically lost data, you could try introducing new texture info. I grabbed the first two pics I found of "rocks" and nested them inside the (refined) highlights selection. (Try to find imagery close to the right scale and with similar pixel quality to minimize fiddling about)

Play with layering and blends. I did it quickly with broad imagery and let the textures fall where they may. You can get a specific as you like/need (I did pay a little attention to one specific rock....).

cheers.

Thank you!  Being still quite new, I understand the broad view of what you sent.  Just hazy on the specific steps in the nesting them inside the (refined) highlights selection.  You certainly nailed it.  Any chance you can provide the URL to a video of the step-by-step?

Thanks again.

[RickyO]

16 hours ago, thomaso said:

stones.afphoto

1. auto-selection of the highlights:

2. masked adjustment layers:

3. paint on the mask of the adjustments to partially fine-tune them according to the image content, e.g. reduce the mask for the yellowish WB on the bluish stones. Or exclude the gras from the noise adjustment.

An underexposed photo is usually easier to repair than an overexposed one because highlights loose their image information faster than shadows. In case of the stones the missing info was added by noise which works well because of their similar structure. It wouldn't have worked on a different texture, like for instance a glossy, overexposed wooden surface which shows rather stripes than a pixelated structure.

Thank you!

It's all a learning curve.  Asked one question and learned a half-dozen things I hadn't known.  (I'll have to do this more often....)  I think I found an issue that I created, oh well.  I'll give your method a try of course.

Thanks again.

 

[RickyO]

To All, THANK YOU!

Attached is a png export (so that I'm not sending a 16Mb file).  Not great, but will serve the purpose (part of a book on home buying).  In it's current state, it gives me the focus I like, bright to the front with retained texture, ranging to the rear which is most shadows, with mid-lighting between.

Thanks to all again.

[RickyO]

4 hours ago, Lagarto said:

To keep the highlights of the rest of the image I would area select just the rocks and place a copy of them on top of the copy of the image and then apply Shadows & Highlight Live filter (instead of Shadows & Highlights Adjustment), which allows more control of the way highlights are processed, and just bring up the pixels there really exist. Color Balance Adjustment can be used to control the color cast.

 

Thank You!

So many responses, lots to try out.  I'll be giving your suggestion a try.

Thanks again.