Hi there

Im a CS2 user and have a photo <http://s278.photobucket.com/albums/kk95/studentier/?action=tageditmany>

As you can probably see the problem is with the brillant sunlight pouring through the windows. I have played around with the curves, but it just looks too dark and still white light through those windows. I was going to find a new background for each window cut out and replace and then play with the curves to bring the light down in the rest of the room.

Any ideas? I think I am probably going about it the wrong way?

Thanks muchly

With the window blowing out that much it's not exactly easy to strip something else in and have it look convincing. Your overall shot is very flat and magenta right now. You can pull a lot of highlight detail back using Highlight/Shadow and then make a Curves adjustment to address the overall tonality and color casts. You can assume that the t.v. bezel is probably neutral and go from there. A round of hi radius low amount sharpening followed by more conventional sharpening will add a lot of punch. From there you'll want just a hint of exterior, but the blown out windows don't really bother me too much. What is the purpose of the image?

<http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1h6aXan5kfGDkx4xEPAZAV8eHve>

While we all try to avoid blown highlights there are occasions where it actually works, just giving a feeling of intense light. I agree with Peter, and wouldn't try to "fill in" the windows. It wouldn't work anyway, unless it's a raw image that could be pulled back considerably.

Don't forget the nice trick of applying shadow/highlight inside a channel mask to avoid halos (Ctrl click on RGB in channels palette). On the other hand, perhaps halos would be just right here. You never know until you try.

Thankyou both of you.....

Peter the photo is for a website promting a cottage let. My friend gave it to me and asked me to "sort it out"!! I am new to image editing and always immediately look for the problems in an image without considering the overall impact! I will have a look at the shadows and highlights and then adjust the curves.

Didnt know about the halo avoidance trick, thanks for that DG.

Angie

The white bqalance tool in the CS3 Raw editor would definitely get the color closer. As for the blown out windows, I would suggest reshooting the image.

Here is something that not a lot of photographers do, or have even thought about. If you wnat get an evenly metered image that exposes both the indoors and the outdoors correctly, first meter the outdoor, and just for the sake of argument that you get a reading of w/125 at f16. Now go meter indoors, and again for the sake of argument that you get a reading of 1/125 at f8.

Set your camera up in Manuakl mode at 1/125 at f16 and shoot the image with a diffused flash that is powerful enough to bring your indoor reading all the way up from f8 to f16.

Do that and your interior and exterior will both be exposed correctly.

I use this method constantly when shooting weddings so that we have blue sky backgrounds instead of white, blown out backgrounds.

Randy
<http://hawaiiphotostudio.com>
<http://leerandallstewart.com>

He was given the picture by a friend.

BTW, this forum is not a free advertising site!