Sunlight Removal Tutorial?

[NVicknair]

Hi there, I have a photo that I want to edit and I'm relatively new to Affinity. There is a crazy amount of sunlight shining on my friend's face, to the point where the detail and color is gone. Just white sunlight is all I can see. Is there a way to remove the sunlight shinning on him so that I can see his face and get the color back? Thanks!!

[AndrejS]

Since no one replied yet, i'll just ask whether you have a JPG or "RAW" type of image? When latter, you could do a lot using the AP's Develop Persona, where you can rescue a lot out of such mishaps. If you only have a JPG, then you're probably out of luck, since you won't be able to get any detail from completely white image (but you can try using Exposure, Shadows/Highlights,  Brightness/Contrast adjustments)

But i'm no expert. 

 

And next time you shoot in such bright light, make sure to get shooting parameters right or start using the RAW shooting mode or use a ND filter. 

[stokerg]

Hi NVicknair and Welcome to the Forums,

 

You could try giving the Removing Lens Flare tutorial a go, the same techniques should also help with sun flare 

[AndrejS]

Hey Stokerg, 

 

that's what i was looking for yesterday, when i wanted to get rid of hue, that remained after object removal from photo. Frequency separation is a great tool, mostly overlooked by us, newbies. 

[firstdefence]

Generally there is no way to get detail back from washed out highlights because there is just nothing there to pull back, its better to under-exposure rather than over-expose, that said you could always take another image or use an image you already have, import it and try cloning from the imported image the skin, or find an image that has a similar complexion to your friends and use that as the "donor image".

 

Duplicate the main layer so you have a workable copy to fall back to if you screw up, use a smallish brush and play about with the hardness setting and opacity to see what effect you get.