joecichjr Loc: Chicago S. Suburbs, Illinois, USA

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profbowman Loc: Harrisonburg, VA, USA

Well, I will let you decide or at least comment on my attempt to merge the original photo with a darker one. I have the original, my attempt at just adjusting contrast and gamma, and my trial to merge the orig and a darker one with a bit of contrast adjustment afterwards. --Richard

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Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Sorry, but I'm only seeing a light gray where one would expect to see white. We all have our preferences and of course it's the OP whose opinion counts.

My attachment is just a Nik Silver Efex preset called "full contrast and structure." If the OP's original has no further details available in the foreground, I've attached #1 as a crop suggestion.

So far, no one has offered suggestions for what to do when taking the picture - except that two of us mentioned metering mode. I hope there is some magic solution that my aging brain hasn't thought of yet

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jcboy3

You should have highlights/shadow display enabled, this will show orange for blown highlights and blue for crushed shadows.

You should use ESP metering mode.

You should have HDR set to 3f2EV and set a function button to enable HDR. I usually use a front button for HDR, so it's quick to activate. When enabled, it will take 3 shots at 2EV intervals with continuous high speed mechanical shutter.

You should have ISO set to 200 (not Auto). If ISO is set to Auto, you will wind up with ISO bracketed shots, which when shooting RAW is basically useless.

You should be shooting in a mode with exposure compensation on a control dial. This is the default with A and S modes; I generally shoot in A mode.

If you are going to grab a quick shot with absolutely no time to check exposure, then use HDR mode. You don't need to do HDR processing on the results (although if the dynamic range is high, you may want to), but rather the bracketed shots will more likely satisfy your exposure needs.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

Even for moving subjects?

jcboy3

Yes, even for moving subjects. The intent is to get bracketed shots, not necessarily to combine them. There are two functions with HDR on Olympus cameras; one will generate an in-camera HDR JPG. But the other will just take bracketed shots that you can then pick the best exposure.

Grahame Loc: Fiji

Personally I'd like to see the original, unedited image to confirm what has/has not been done in PP.

If it were shot in raw chances are that you could pull back the majority of detail with something taken a stop over sunny 16.

Likely a red herring but within the Exif an interesting reading in 'Exposure'

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User ID

I had assumed those were live people.

User ID

When I "murder children", I do eat them. I dont let the wildlife one-up my cuisine. The quotes are there cuz it is not murder when its abattoir. "Waste not, want not." Thaz out of The Bible, by Moses, which is based on the Ten Amendments, as given to our original Foundling Fathers on high. You really should know that since youve taken it upon yourself to preach politics where its neither welcomed nor allowed.

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ELNikkor

Far from being "one stop down", this is more like 4 stops OVER, if you wanted a better exposure for the milk, (which has a reflectance way above the 18% gray exposure standard a lot of light meters are set for), but then you would see no faces, only black shadows for all turned-down heads. This photo has the look of a manual exposure setting, as I don't know any in-camera auto-exposure mode that would let in so much light, unless the exposure compensation had been set to +4 or +5, given the high reflectance of the milk.

r1ch Loc: Colorado

If you set it for 1 stop increment and 5 images, you would get a 2 stops under image. This would fix your problem. You would not be using any of the other images it took. But every time you pressed the shutter you would fill up the card with 5 shots for of which you would not be using. This would work well but not very efficient.

I assume you took this in color and converted it to black and white? Could we see the color image?

MikeT46 Loc: Hermantown,MN

In that situation might try matrix metering, and expose to the right (lots of online videos about exposing to the right), and a lower ISO if you have that option. Challenging dynamic range for an active scene.

Linda From Maine Loc: Yakima, Washington

You quote-replied to me, but I am not the OP.

I've already asked the OP to upload an unedited image.

NorCal Bohemian

My two cents - I would suggest that if the subject is the human activists - then the exposure is close to accurate - for facial skin tones, and for maintaining detail in the clothing - especially the woman on the right's dark pants. The background building - especially the second story - is definitely blown out - but is that a bad thing? - in that it leaves the main subject - the people - most prominent.
As for the milk - yes, that is definitely blown out - and of more importance to the subject than the background building, but in my opinion - still less important than the people. When I am using my in camera meter (as opposed to my handheld Gossen meter for my cameras without) I always use Center Weighted mode for the greatest control over what I deem the most important element and for exposure predictability.
As for editing in your software of choice - I will leave those suggestions to those far more up to date on the available options. In the darkroom - this would be a job for "Dodging and Burning" to isolate the areas that you want to accentuate or not - such as "burning in" the milk - while maintaining the correct rendering of the people.

Grahame Loc: Fiji

Surely if any camera is in an 'Auto' mode and a high DR scene such as this is metered using the spot or centre weighted mode on a dark area any camera is going to likely overexpose the light areas.

The Exif is showing that it was shot at 1/350s, f/8, ISO 200. Disregarding any method/mode/EC, that exposure is only 1.17 stops above sunny 16. I would have thought that with basic PP a far less obviously blown image could have been produced, barring of course specular highlights.

I'm basing my thoughts on;
a) the assumption that the exp readings in the exif viewer I'm using are correct
b) testing at the same 1/350, f,8, ISO200 in a very harshly sunlight lit scene
c) using my camera sensor, which is different than the op's
d) PP in ACR

Hopefully the op will respond and post the original unedited image to show exactly what he started with.