How have great exposure but not blow out white pants?

[Richard_Coyle]

My teenage grandkids response to this topic title was simple: Wear dark colored pants, or eat fewer beans! Couldn't resist their feedback! ;-)

[KevinCarter]

I did 2 copies in Raw, that solved it well

[Johan_Elzenga]

Originally Posted by David_Buzzard

I have this same problem with wedding dresses in the hot sun all the time. The problem is that exposure difference between the white pants and the rest of the scene is more than the camera can handle. Get the exposure for the pants as good as you can in your RAW converter, and then convert out to JPG, TIF, or whatever. In Photoshop, open up an adjustment layer and lighten the image to where you want it to be. With adjustment layers, Photoshop automatically puts a layer mask on the adjustment layer. Click on that (it will be the box on the layer menu to the right of the adjustment icon), select a soft edged brush, and paint over the white pants. That will paint away the adjustment layer on the pants and leave them at the original exposure value.

This will work, of course, but it's unnecessary complicated. If you can get the exposure for the pants correctly with Exposure and/or Recovery, you should also be able to get the brightness of the rest of the image correctly in the raw converter. You can use 'Fill Light' to do this, for example, if needed combined with 'Curves'. Pulling up only the lower part of the curve will brighten up the photo without affecting the highlights. No need for masks.

[KevinCarter]

Johan:
Thanks, that fill trick seemed to work pretty Good. I've never used the fill too much, but is did what you said. Lightend the photo leaving the white pants alone.
Curves, I've never figured out. I pulled up the Dark, but that did lighten the pants and made rest of photo too light. Pulling shadows helped, but the image then look flat and washed out. I've always prefered levels.
Perhaps you could screenshot you curve special sauce for this. And there is no levels equivalant?
Still the fill did the trick, what is the technology behind fill?

[Noel_Carboni]

Expose for the highlights then use a good shadow boosting tool/process. Photoshop has a decent Shadows/Highlights function, but be very careful not to overdo it to where it looks like there's a dark halo around the bright parts.

-Noel

[KevinCarter]

Neil: I'm exposing for the face, and the shadow/hightlight is great sometimes for landscape, but a bit gross for people shots. The first two solutions are far superior I think.
Making the 2 Raws is best, but most time consuming.

[Johan_Elzenga]

Originally Posted by KevinCarter

Johan:
Thanks, that fill trick seemed to work pretty Good. I've never used the fill too much, but is did what you said. Lightend the photo leaving the white pants alone.
Curves, I've never figured out. I pulled up the Dark, but that did lighten the pants and made rest of photo too light. Pulling shadows helped, but the image then look flat and washed out. I've always prefered levels.
Perhaps you could screenshot you curve special sauce for this. And there is no levels equivalant?
Still the fill did the trick, what is the technology behind fill?

The combination of Exposure, Blacks and Brightness is exactly what Levels does, that is probably why there is no separate one. Fill is like Shadow/Highlights in Photoshop. It's quite powerful because it really only brightens the shadows. Curves is powerful too, but you have to play with it a little or you do indeed get a washed out effect. First, move the left little triangle underneath the curve to the left, so that 'Shadows' really only changes the darkest pixels. If needed, lower 'Darks' at bit to counter the washed out effect.