How can I recover flash-blown highlights in Lightroom?
Asked 4/23/2011
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Sometimes a photo is overexposed from flash, even when the flash is bounced off a ceiling or wall. In Lightroom 3 or similar software, what editing steps work best to reduce blown highlights, and when is a photo beyond recovery?
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
15y ago
2 Answers
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There is a stop or so of headroom in raw images so you may get away with just reducing the exposure slider in LightRoom. If it's totally blown and there are areas which are pure white then there's no real fix.
There is a "recovery" slider which attempts to fix overexposure in the even of one channel becoming overexposed (usually the red channel if it's faces) but if all three channels then you're out of luck - any fix will result in grey skin as you have lost all colour information.You could try painting in the correct colours in Photoshop but it will be a time consuming fix.
Originally by user1375. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user1375
15y ago
0
Generated from our catalog & community — verify before relying on it.
If you shot RAW, you may be able to recover about a stop of highlight detail. In Lightroom, first enable the histogram clipping warnings so you can see blown highlights, then reduce Exposure and use Recovery to pull back clipped areas. Apply Recovery carefully, since pushing it too far can make tones look unnatural.
Recovery works best when only one channel is clipped. For flash portraits, that’s often the red channel in skin tones, and Lightroom may recover some detail. But if all channels are fully clipped to pure white, the detail and color information are gone—there’s no true fix. Photoshop retouching or repainting color is possible, but it’s time-consuming and limited.
If the blown area isn’t important, cropping it out can be the cleanest solution.
For future shots, prevent the problem at capture: bouncing flash softens light, but it doesn’t control flash power by itself. Use flash exposure compensation in TTL mode, or lower flash power, ISO, or aperture as needed.
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