Recovery from Over Exposed Image?

[Roy]

Sometimes I mess up for whatever reason with exposure. I can do a decent job of recovery on slightly underexposed photos but over exposure I haven't learned to recover from depending on how over exposed it is. What methods do you use if you try to recover an otherwise decent photo or do you just trash them?

[rogerfsmith]

In PS, create a duplicate layer. Set the blend mode of that layer to Multiply. Then adjust the opacity as needed.



Cheers,
Roger

[andyz]

Multiply does darken it, but it depends on if it is slightly over exposed or just blown out. In the latter, there is no data. It is unlike shadows where you can often recover some data.

[Michelle Allmon]

I chunk it and take another if possible. Unless I wanted it to be overexposed. :)

[Roy]

I guess it depends on how blown out it is. Here's a sample and this was originally in raw format. I brought down the exposure on the second one with the raw converter in CR2 to -2.20 exposure and that was the only adjustment. The first one is a straight conversion from Raw with no adjustments.

[ChuckW]

You don't mention what you are doing now but one of the most effective ways, assuming that you are shooting raw and not jpeg, is to dial back the exposure in your raw converter. This can help recover some amazingly bad exposures. If you have areas of the image that are totally blown out there is no way to recover these areas. However, depending on where the blown out areas are in the image, it may be possible to clone over them from good parts of the image.

[rogerfsmith]

Originally Posted by andyz

Multiply does darken it, but it depends on if it is slightly over exposed or just blown out. In the latter, there is no data. It is unlike shadows where you can often recover some data.

The beauty of the dupe layer and blend mode and opacity work is that you can also create a layer mask and then use black or white paint to show or hide the layer or use grays to blend further.
Cheers,
Roger