LKincaid Loc: Tampa Bay, Florida

Keeping the integrity of whites in a photo have been tough for me. Tried working with the white balance in PP to help.....

R.G. Loc: Scotland

"Blown out" means over-exposed beyond the point of saturation, which is an in-camera issue and an exposure issue. White balance, whether in-camera or in PP, is a colour issue.

If it's the colour issue that you're referring to, if WB adjustments aren't working on a white but tinted area, as a last resort you can select and de-saturate the problem area.

LKincaid Loc: Tampa Bay, Florida

As a novice, I am working with my camera settings but cannot seem to get the detail I am looking for. I am sure I am not utilizing the "proper" verbiage to describe the issue I am having. Thank you for the advice, I will have to keep on practicing.

R.G. Loc: Scotland

A loss of detail indicates blown highlights, which is an in-camera exposure issue. Try searching "avoiding blown highlights". There may also be something in the tutorial thread in this section (PP).

http://www.uglyhedgehog.com/t-156310-1.html

Bob Yankle Loc: Burlington, NC

One of the things that helps if you're shooting a white flower in bright sunlight is to use a fairly dark neutral density filter (ND 8 or higher). I use a variable ND filter called a fader that I can control the sunlight with. It takes out the "blown out" spots and gives you nice contrast throughout the flower blossom.

LKincaid Loc: Tampa Bay, Florida

Thank you for the info. There is actually a lot of information at the link you provided to assist me.

LKincaid Loc: Tampa Bay, Florida

Thank you Bob, I always appreciate getting advise from the veterans here :)

R.G. Loc: Scotland

Just as an afterthought, you may be describing whites that are not blown but are just too bright. For a very quick check you can temporarily put the Exposure (or Brightness) slider well to the left to see if any detail emerges from the glare. If nothing emerges, then you have blown highlights. However, if you start to see detail, you can return the slider to its normal position then select the white area and reduce its brightness.

Sorry if this is stating the obvious to you. I'm having to guess which problem you're referring to.

LKincaid Loc: Tampa Bay, Florida

Thank you, it was not obvious. I am really new to taking photos to the "next" level and working in PP programs.

Apaflo Loc: Anchorage, Alaska

The first step is in the camera, because if highlights where you want detail are clipped at the maximum level in the raw sensor data there is no way to recover them. Note that sometimes you don't mind if a highlight is clipped though. Examples are light sources and reflections. And sometimes there are both dard shadows and a bright sky, and your camera just simply can't record that range of brightness, so you get what you can and lose some.

But, when you are shooting, one thing you can do is enable display of the histogram and also blinking highlights. That will show if any part of the image is clipping (all white) or blocking (all black). If it isn't what you want, uses Exposure Compensation and shoot another shot.

Then when you edit an image in post processing there are some useful things to know. It depends on which editor you use as to just exactly how this works, but you'll need to see an histogram and need to know where a couple of pixel values are on the histogram. You don't need to have any values blacker than about 30 (that is on an 8bit scale of 0 to 255). It's okay if there are, just be aware that 10 is going to be just as black as 30. On the other end, 245 is about the whitest white where any detail will be visible. For example, you don't want the shiny areas on a person's face to be at 254. Light sources and reflections where you don't need to see detail can be higher than 245. Also, for both black and white values, once you add any kind of sharpen there will be edges that go that high. As long as it's just an edge and not an area on a surface, that's fine.

That's a bunch of information to digest. But in a nutshell, that is the answer.

anotherview Loc: California

When shooting, consult the Histogram. It shows the image values, from dark on the left to bright on the right. The image values should not bunch up against the right side because this situation will result in blown out highlights.

You can also set your camera to show blinking dark markings that indicate blown out highlights.

If the blown out highlights happen, the use Exposure Compensation to reduce the Exposure.

If shooting in Manual mode, you can adjust one or more of the three available settings: ISO, Shutter Speed, or Aperture.

Lower the ISO, increase the Shutter Speed, or set a smaller Aperture. These three settings make the Exposure Triangle for achieving proper exposure.

In making an adjustment for the bright area, you may find the rest of the image darkening substantially. As you may know, most of the noise in an image appears in the darkest area. Newer cameras, like the Canon 6D, can capture dark areas fairly clean of noise even at higher ISO settings. Routinely, I expose for the Highlights using my Canon 6D, and adjust the dark areas later in Adobe Camera Raw and Photoshop.

Good luck.

dpullum Loc: Tampa Florida

I have never heard complaints from the CClub judges about sections that were 0 0 0 black, but they writhe in pain when seeing 255 255 255 pure white!! I even got points off in an abstract that purposely had pure white... "it was distracting?" say what?? Well, yes it is part of my composition. .... end of rant.

You can always bracket one is bound to be correct. Also shift the exposure EV to be darker (-), that helps. Be sure to use the histogram on you camera screen, a great tool (RG's comment above).

I often take flowers using low ISO (100) f=8 and 1/500 second shutter using flash. This blurs the background and with a little twiddling you will find the correct setting such that the flash will not over expose the flower. You can even add tissue to the flash to mute it. Develop a technique write it down and do the same each time.. with only variations that you think out.

MtnMan Loc: ID

It isn't a post processing thing because once you have blown the highlights they are not recoverable. That is the definition of blown.

The most common suggestion to avoid blown highlights is to spot meter on the brightest part of the image you intend to make, in Manual exposure mode, and set the meter to +2 EV. Then nothing will be blown.

BUT, if your image has wide dynamic range this might cause you to block up the dark areas; i.e. lose all information in the shadows.

Nikon gives you a couple of choices to help with that. One is Active D-lighting. The other is in-camera HDR.

There is a post processing solution if you shoot in RAW. RAW images give you more dynamic range to work with in post processing. Then you can try reducing the highlights and increasing the shadows.

The last resort is to take three or more images and use HDR.

Enjoy experimenting with these options!

LKincaid Loc: Tampa Bay, Florida

Thank you so much everyone! A lot to look over. I just bought a Nikon D3300 at a good price this last weekend and it has a lot more things in camera (at least easier to see) than my Nikon D50 that I picked up used a few years ago. Looking forward to experimenting with it.