Lightening only the tires in a car photo?

[mkaresh]

I review cars, and for the past few years have used a free program for my image editing. One thing this program doesn't do well is allow me to adjust specific areas of the photo. I most want to do this with tires, which are often underexposed when shooting a white or silver car.

 

Any tips for how I might use Affinity to do this?
 

Photo attached. I deliberately undersposed the image to avoid washing out surface details of the car.
 

I've been playing around in the trail version of Affinity. The "Auto levels" button is a decent first stab.

Closest I've figured out is the shadow adjustment, but that affects the entire image. Also see a flooding tool, but not sure how to properly use that, or if it's even the best approach.

[Grazie]

At capture, I’ve learnt to do 3  - or more - exposures for this type of issue. But you’re here, I get it it. There’s a great Affinity, local Exposure Video tute for this. Try it!

[HVDB Photography]

Ad an Exposure Adjustment layer with a value of 3.
Layer > Invert

Select the paint brush

Set the colour to white and paint back the tires

 

[Polygonius]

1.

Make an adjustment layer "brightness/contrast" and give a big brightness.

2.

Put (nest) it into your target level.

3.

Invert this adjustment (cmd+I) = nothing is affected.

4.

Choose a brush, maybe 25% hard, but color = 100% white. 

5.

Paint over the lights (with the adjustment layer in focus, NOT its parent-layer!!!!), voila the brightness just came here. (if to much overpaint with black, it will erase the effect).

6.

Choose a blend-mode for the adjustment, maybe a presence smaller than 100%... do other finework like a tiny blurr...

 

 

[Polygonius]

ups, HVDB was faster

[Alfred]

It’s the tyres (rather than the wheels or the lights) that @mkaresh wants to adjust, but the principle is obviously the same.

[IanSG]

I'd start by shooting in RAW to give yourself as much latitude as possible.  As well as using masks and adjustment layers you could try the dodge brush, though I don't think it's as good in this case.

[Grazie]

2 hours ago, IanSG said:

I'd start by shooting in RAW to give yourself as much latitude as possible.  As well as using masks and adjustment layers you could try the dodge brush, though I don't think it's as good in this case.

 

And the artistry in making the choice and combination of tools to make that difference. I’m still learning when or what I want to do.