I just realized (doh!) that these scenes of extreme brightness and darkness are excellent candidates for the local adjustment brush in Photoshop CS4/Lightroom 2 to modify exposure locally, as in your other past examples.

Thanks!

Stephen .. in the example you mention there .. billboards & sky, you will most often not get an exposure setting where both are equally well exposed. There is just too much of a difference in the relative brightness of both areas.

You will have to wait for a time of day … perhaps early evening, when the sky is less bright and better balanced in relation to the billboards.

In the photograph at the top, I had to cook the image a bit to bring up the exposure in the paving, and bring down the exposure in the sky … even with the exposure correct for the model.

I could bring up the exposure for the model to the same level as the sky .. but then the surrounding areas go dark. In this case not a problem .. but you simply won’t be able to get correct exposure for two areas in the background of such different brightness levels.

Neil vN

You written in the past that via the histogram method, the brightest relevant tone (white gown) usually ends up around +1.3 to +1.7 exposure on a Nikon. You also wrote that if you were metering off light skin tones, the exposure needle usually ends up around +0.7.

However, my problem is understanding how to meter for things that are not white gowns and light skin tone (i.e. the sky, the ground, general objects). I just tried to take a picture recently of some buildings and electronic billboards in Times Square (i.e. lots of lights and darks), but I was at a loss how to expose for this. If I exposed for the sky or electronic billboards to get a 0 reading on the exposure needle, the buildings seem a bit underexposed.

Thanks.

Speaking of drama … here I am explaining something to someone, and I do look intense!

Neil vN

Really nice post! Again!
I’m really feeling the process you go trough when editing this photo, but I don’t really know photoshop that well to play with it like that. I usually just fix WB and exposure a little and maybe crop a bit too, but never dared to start messing with it like you did.
I really like to learn it! Can you give me some pointers to where I can learn this? Maybe some website or book you used? I especially would like to know how the removing of the ‘clutter’ is done. The cloning thing you mentioned above?
A big thanks for the great content here I allready learned a lot from your website!

Jonas

Daniel .. with ‘blending’ I meant the ways the layers can be blended, as you mention there .. soft light, etc. But I do pull those layers in at different opacities.

Neil vN

Mark, I do take pull-back shots when I remember to. I’ve posted them here on occasion.

However, with this shoot, it was a little crazy. Here’s a general shot someone else took during the session out in the middle of the road.

Neil vN