The Power of Recovery

[WIlliam Maroldo]

SonyA700~Sony70-400G@280mm~ISO1000~F5.6~1/160 sec~manual exposure~HH~overcast~12-13-2009~ Houston, Texas~CS4
I've posted this grackle image, and the same image that was not "recovered" in the following post, in order to demonstrate how, under low contrast conditions, an image can be overexposed quite a bit, and corrected in Adobe Camera Raw(ACR) using the recovery and exposure sliders. The histogram of the image before recovery is included in the following post.
IMO overexposure is an important tool in reducing noise. This image of the black bird was shot at ISO 1000. No noise reduction was used.
comments and critique welcomed. regards~Bill

my images posted on BPN (http://www.myimageportfolio.com/PostedBPN)

[WIlliam Maroldo]

No post processing along with with CS4 histogram.

[Desmond Chan]

Good job! Although that's not a natural perch, I like the sharpness, details, and the colors. I think you could increase the contrast by a tad, too, if you choose to.

As for Recovery, in general, how much you can recover depends on the dynamic range your camera can handle. I think you only let it over a bit and so I can see Recovery serves you really well.

[Jackie Schuknecht]

Did you actually peg the red and green channels to the right. Hard to tell from the pic. Very interesting method Bill. The bird looks great. Sharp, and nice not to have to use NR.

[Alfred Forns]

Excellent post Bill !!!

From the histogram looks like they are not pegged except the blue? Hard to tell.

I always teach to expose to the right and have data on the fifth box, we don't want any overexposure at all. Maybe you are calling overexposed images to those that look light in the camera or computer (without over exposure) but as can be clearly seen they will convert to fine images !! Part of the reason is the amount of data on each box .. the last box in the histogram has more data than the previous four.

... btw really like the color for that bird and one you don't usually see with the proper colors !!!

[Gus Cobos]

Excellent image and post processing Bill...well done...:cool:

[Anita Rakestraw]

Thanks so much for the demonstration, Bill! Should help me work on that "exposure to the right!!"

[Lance Peters]

Hi Bill - agree with AL here - would refer to this as exposing to the right - Over exposing to my way of thinking would be pushing the histogram even further so that its clipped - which IMHO is a dangerous thing unless you really know your gear and light very well.
Know there are some here that do do this and recover the whites in much the same manner - but really need to know exactly how far you can go without loosing anything.

Great visual demo of the expose to the right theory!!!!!