Expose?

[MReid]

Get the highlights right.
You can adjust the shadows in processing, if you blow out the skin to far there is no saving it.
Set your blinkies to go off if the skin is blown, adjust the exposure as necessary to keep the blinkies from going off on the areas of the skin you care about.

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[Tiberius47]

Which means I have to find a middle point for both the highlights and the shadows. Don't seem like an easy thing to do.

Expose for the highlights and put detail back in the shadows with flash.

[EchoingWhisper]

... No one is answering my question right. I mean, for the end result. Not what you would expose for. Generally I expose to prevent blown highlights. But now I'm asking how bright the photos should be for the end result? Which part of the photo should the brightness be optimised for?

[EchoingWhisper]

Should be you have a Nikon

lol, it's not Nikon's problem, more like my problem. I do use my friends' Canons quite often. Canon have the same problem, so most likely I'm just nitpicky.

Not in my hands they don't

You need to comprehend my post. I'm not talking about getting the exposure in camera. I'm talking bout' the end result. Which part of the face should be correctly exposed? The one in the shadows or the one at the highlights. Unless you have even lighting, you'll never get right exposure for every single part of the face. So my question is, which is the preferred area to have the face exposed correctly?

[shmne]

Unless you have even lighting, you'll never get right exposure for every single part of the face.

Everyone has been answering your question, its just you need to read between the lines a bit. If you are exposing for the brights when you shoot the image, then you should also be exposing for the brights when you are finishing the image in post production.

The goal is to bring enough detail back in the darks, without affecting the brights at all. You still want contrast, so try to ensure you don't brighten the darks too much. The best way to do this is with a 50% gray layer in overlay and to paint with a 2-3% white brush on the dark side of the face. This will slowly bring back small amounts of detail.

Now if you do this, you will have a properly exposed bright side of the face with a not too dark side of the face. Also you could save yourself the hassle and just use flash to surpass this issue all together.

[MReid]

How many different ways can people say expose for the highlights and fix the shadows in post.

[Tiberius47]

Which part of the photo should the brightness be optimised for?

The subject.

[EchoingWhisper]

Unless you have even lighting, you'll never get right exposure for every single part of the face.

Everyone has been answering your question, its just you need to read between the lines a bit. If you are exposing for the brights when you shoot the image, then you should also be exposing for the brights when you are finishing the image in post production.

The goal is to bring enough detail back in the darks, without affecting the brights at all. You still want contrast, so try to ensure you don't brighten the darks too much. The best way to do this is with a 50% gray layer in overlay and to paint with a 2-3% white brush on the dark side of the face. This will slowly bring back small amounts of detail.

Now if you do this, you will have a properly exposed bright side of the face with a not too dark side of the face. Also you could save yourself the hassle and just use flash to surpass this issue all together.

Ah, really thank you!