How can I reduce harsh facial contrast in post-processing?
Asked 9/18/2015
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2 answers
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I’m looking for post-processing tools and techniques to soften severe contrast on faces caused by harsh lighting, especially overly bright highlights and deep shadows. I’ve seen references to using Lab color to separate color from contrast, but I’d like practical guidance on what tools are useful for this kind of correction. I’m not looking for a full step-by-step tutorial—just the main tools or techniques worth learning for recovering highlights and reducing contrast on skin tones.
Originally by Photography Stack Exchange contributor. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
Photography Stack Exchange contributor
10y ago
2 Answers
1
I hope you are talking about the blown out part of a face. In Photoshop, using shadow/highlight option can reduce the blown out highlights of an image. you can just play around the values and see a better change very fast. This is the simplest method I have ever come across.
Originally by user44657. Source · Licensed CC BY-SA 4.0
user44657
10y ago
0
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A simple place to start in Photoshop is the Shadows/Highlights adjustment. It’s specifically useful for taming harsh lighting by reducing overly bright areas and lifting darker ones, which can make facial contrast look less severe.
For your case, focus on:
- Highlight recovery to pull back bright areas on the face
- Shadow lifting to open dark areas
- Adjusting the settings gradually so the result stays natural
This is one of the quickest and most practical tools for reducing strong contrast in portraits, especially when the problem is blown highlights or deep facial shadows. If the highlights are fully clipped, though, no tool can restore detail that was never captured.
So, if you want one technique to learn first for this problem, make it Photoshop’s Shadows/Highlights adjustment.
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