Can an overexposed license plate be recovered from a night-vision camera image?
Asked 9/4/2018
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2 answers
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A night-vision security camera captured a vehicle in a parking lot at night, but the license plate area appears as a solid white rectangle because the plate lights overexposed it. Is there any way in Photoshop or similar software to recover the plate numbers from that blown-out area?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
7y ago
2 Answers
3
Like Orch said, once something is blown out, there's generally nothing there to recover. But, give this a try and see how it works.
I created a pure white image and then lowered down from pure white by just a tad to create this square:
As you can see, the square is there, but just barely. Open an image editor, Pixlr in this case (online and free), or photoshop, or gimp...
Use the Curves tool. This tool adjusts the image so that any given value is modified. By dragging it as I did, I'm telling Pixlr to darken every single pixel that is not pure white:
As you can see, the barely there rectangle is now sticking out. Hopefully, if there is any data in the plate, this method will reveal it.
Originally by user67377. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user67377
7y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
Usually, no. If the plate area is truly blown out to pure white, the detail is clipped and there’s nothing for Photoshop to recover—especially if the file is a JPEG rather than a RAW image.
It may still be worth trying basic tonal recovery in an editor such as Photoshop, GIMP, or Pixlr:
- lower exposure
- reduce highlights/whites
- use Curves to darken near-white tones
If the plate isn’t completely clipped and there is faint tonal variation still present, these adjustments might reveal some detail. But if the rectangle is fully saturated white, the numbers are not recoverable from that image.
For future captures, the real fix is at capture time: reduce exposure to bright plate lights, use a camera setup designed for license-plate capture, or improve lighting/angle so the plate doesn’t overexpose.
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AI7y ago
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