Saddle Billed Stork

[Ken Watkins]

Taken on Mapula Concession Botswana 15th September 2008

Canon EOS 1d MkIII

500mm IS hand held

F6.3, 1/2000, ISO 500

[Arthur Morris]

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Hi Ken, Lots of important lessons here. I brought the image into PS to reduce the contrast (which I did) and noted that as presented originally above, there were lots of overexposed pixels, not only in the whites of the neck but in the reds and the yellows. I reduced the red and yellow SAT and eliminated the over-EXP in those areas, but the whites are un-salvageable at this point.

I see this in many images here so I came up with this tutorial:

#1: The best time to "save the highlights" is at the time of capture. After making a single image of a subject in a given light, you need to check both the histogram (to make sure that you are exposing well to the right), and then check for flashing highlights (or visa versa).

#2: If you do wind up with some over-exposed pixels, they must be dealt with during conversion! If you convert the image too light, i.e., with over-exposed pixels, then you can never recover the highlights... Every program used to convert our images has a way to a-check for over-exposed pixels--you need to have the alerts set in whatever program you are using. In ACR, set up the red warning for overexposed highlights and the blue warning for underexposed shadows. I believe that it is pretty much the same in Lightroom and Aperture. One I get back on line I will have Scott Bourne comment here on Aperture. It is possible to both check for and recover flashing highlights in Aperture.

In Breezebrowser, I simply hit Exposure Compensation in the Conversion Window and then check the histogram. If the image shows clipped highlights, I reduce the EXP and then use Combined as the conversion. This helps recover apparently but not actually lost highlights. In ACR, you first reduce the EXP and then use the Recover slider until the red warning disappears. Scott will comment on recovering highlights in Aperture. It is easy and fast; I saw him do it.

#3: If you have whites that are technically not over-exposed but lack density and detail, you can improve those areas by either Multiplying the selection or applying a Linear Burn. See that thread in Education Resources.

[Ken Watkins]

Thanks Art

There are times when I rush processing and miss out on the obvious things.
I have tried again and here is another attempt, which is I hope better

[Joanna Trescott]

Wow, the repost is so much better. What a wonderful bird and now great shot!

[Arthur Morris]

Yes better, but does not pass the Levels test. Still overexposed yellows and reds on the bill and the white of the shoulder.... Go back and read what I wrote! Note: in some cases, the highlights are unrecoverablle due to a poor expsoure to start with.