Repair jpg photo

[Johnowl]

I have a badly exposed JPEG photo with some parts correctly exposed and othere drowned out by the sun. I have done some editing of RAW files on similar photos with some success but am very new to Affinity. Are there any ways to repair parts of a jpg photo? 

[v_kyr]

Of course, take a look over the AP video tutorials section to get an idea ...

• Affinity Photo tutorials

[Johnowl]

Thanks. Any specific tutorials you’d advise on? Had a look and there are loads so a bit daunting

[v_kyr]

Getting Started, Adjustments, Layers ... (step for step) so those things you would have done with your RAW files too here or you want to do with your JPG images.

[IanSG]

10 minutes ago, Johnowl said:

Thanks. Any specific tutorials you’d advise on? Had a look and there are loads so a bit daunting

Is there any chance you can post the image you're hoping to fix - it's a lot easier to recommend specific tutorials if we can see the problem.  

[Johnowl]

Have attached one of those I was trying to do something with.  

 

 

[MEB]

Hi Johnowl,

Welcome to Affinity Forums

It's impossible to recover details on these areas (sun highlights) because the tones/highlights are clipped - that is, there's no information/detail on those areas to recover. It's possible to increase the contrast a little on the faces closer to the sun but most of the area behind them has no detail.

[Johnowl]

How would I edit the contrast on the faces closest to the sun whilst leaving the others alone. Even if I can’t do anything about the sky it would still help me to know how and what I can do to specific areas on a jpeg file.  Thanks

[MEB]

Hi Johnowl,

All live filters/adjustments have a built-in mask that you can use to restrict the areas affected by the filter/adjustment. So for example, if you apply an exposure adjustment to your image/layer (set the slider to a high value so you can easily see its effect on the image) it will affect the image as a whole. To restrict it to a specific part, select the adjustment in the Layers panel clicking on its thumbnail then go to menu Layer ▸ Invert to change the built-in mask from white to black. When working with masks black conceals/hides, while white reveals/show. So when you change the exposure adjustments built-in mask to black you "block" the effect of the adjustment over the image. Your image should now look as if it didn't have an exposure adjustment at all since you have concealed the effect of the adjustment turning the mask to black.

 

Now to affect just a specific area, select the Paint Brush Tool, set the hardness to a low value in case you want to use a softer brush, change the colour to white and paint over the canvas (with the layer exposure adjustment still selected). What you are doing is painting with white on the mask revealing the effect of the exposure adjustment on the areas you are painting. You can still double-click the exposure adjustment thumbnail in the Layers panel to adjust/tweak the exposure slider as you see fit. This applies to all adjustments and all live filters available in Affinity Photo.

[Johnowl]

Thanks. WiIl give that a go when back home later. 

[MEB]

Also check this video tutorial for more details about using masking with adjustments: Affinity Photo - Mask Layers

[Johnowl]

Thank you. Really helpful