Highlight Blowouts are a Pain … Not Anymore!
Over the last several years I have shown you many ways to use Blend IF creatively. But this is a new one I just figured out by necessity.
A couple of months ago when I was in the Badlands I saw this scene, fell in love with it, snapped it, then quickly moved on. When I got to my PC I realized I probably should have bracketed, but the constraints of the scene, the speed at which I needed to get to the next location, and the movement of that animals just wouldn’t have been possible. However, I didn’t want to dump the image just because of a highlight blowout. After all, the sun was VERY bright that evening anyway.
As I worked on this one in Photoshop I stumbled upon a clever use of the Clone Stamp Tool and Blend If and it worked magically here. I sampled the clouds to the left and right of the blowout and then used that information to fill in the blown-out area. Because I wanted it to appear natural, I used blend if to protect areas of the underlying layer, while using data in the current layer. The result was awesome and more practical than trying to use masks.
In today’s video, I will show you exactly how I fixed this blowout situation with the Clone Stamp Tool and Blend If. Just know you can use this technique for all kinds of things like puffy white clouds, waterfalls, or even distracting specular highlights.
For Blake, it's all about the art and process synergy. He dives deep into complex topics and makes them easy to understand through his outside-the-box thinking so that you can use these tricks in your workflow today!
Thank you so much Blake. Great video, exactly what I needed two days ago!!! Time to go back and redo! Great work as always.
Just what we need in TPS, is more great TC images!
Gee thank Bob! I can’t hide anywhere can I????
Great tips. Thanks as always.
Stay Safe,
Vinny
Love this! Have a few photos I need to go back and use this on! Thanks Blake…awesome as always.
Thanks! Just today I cloned and cloned, and just cloned; blend if didn’t reach my mind. So, back to work (tomorrow).
This is great! Who doesn’t have pictures with blown out skies?
Maybe it will also work on Alaskan Moose antlers? The sun was hanging low in the September sky. That’s my excuse for having the central portion of the antlers blown out in an otherwise well exposed picture. I’m excited to try when I get home in a couple days. It’s really disappointing to find a problem like that. Maybe you have found the cure for my heartbreak.
Wow! Your tutorials are always spot on, but this came just in the nick of time for me! So amazing, yet so simple. Thank you!!!
Awesome… so important! I have used photoshop for years and years… still so behind… nice to shake up my routine ..and yes I over clone stamp… takes forever … sigh… thank you
My issues are jewelry photography .. shiny products… blown out high lights always an issue.. sometime speed is the most important.. bracketing etc often too time consuming.
Maybe this will help
Damn, you have outdone yourself. The issue that you address here is really common, something most any photographer has faced. I, for sure, have faced it. Your solution is elegant. Worth every subscription to f64academy.com. Blake, you are a guru, you should maybe be charging more for f64! I do not know another source to get this quality of PS education, learning that is specifically directed to the needs of photographers, not the whole gamut of people that PS serves.
excellent tutorial, will use it..
“The Everything Bagel” profile??? Me thinks you are scheming again, Blake! Good lesson!!
I am up to no good! And that profile is EPIC
Boy, did you just bail me out. I was resigned to having a miserable white splotch in the middle of my gorgeous sunset. Blake Rudis to the rescue! How did you know?
Spot on. Thank you so much. Can’t wait to try it.
Damn. Wow. This is fantastic, Blake. Thanks a lot for this. I have struggled with this for some time.
And hey – you love that magenta overlay!
Great video. Thanks for sharing a technique that I will use frequently. It seems no matter how careful I get there are always scenes that appear and need to be shot quickly that I don’t have the time to bracket.