Anything I can do to maintain detail in the highlights?

[TehYoyo]

Hey all,

I was taking this picture of a Calvin & Hobbes scene reproduced in my front lawn

Maybe you recognize the scene.

Is there anything that I can adjust in post or do on-scene (aside from using multiple exposures for HDR) to keep detail in the highlights (the snow)?

Thanks.

 

[Solarflare]

Um, dont overexpose ?

And dont flatten the dynamics like that - that will of course destroy all details, as if you had overexposed.

 

[amolitor]

Use a curved curve, not a curve made up of straight line segments. You don't want to smack "all this pretty much light stuff" up to pure white, you want to map the lighter tones to a lighter set of tones that are still all separate from one another.

Fool around with that curve more, learn how it works. You can push contrast into small regions of the tonal range (which brings out detail in that tonal range) by making that part steeper, and so on.

 

[Benco]

Pull the highlight slider to the left to enhance highlight detail (won't work though if overexposed of course).

 

[Big Mike]

Love the scene. Calvin & Hobbes are my all time favorite.

It all starts with good exposure. In this case, a proper exposure (white snow showing up white) may be a little too bright, so a tad underexposed would be good. But, what you have to understand first, is that the camera (if you let it) will dramatically underexpose this scene anyway. You will want to expose the scene, so that your historgram gets close to the right hand side, but doesn't touch it (doesn't clip). Of course, shooting in Raw will help.

As for what you've done, I agree with the others, fix/reset your tone curve. Use the whites slider to take down the brightness of the snow if need be. Also, I wouldn't suggest using the 'contrast' slider very much (or at all). It's sort a a 'dumb' control, in that is just blindly adjusts the global contrast. Try using clarity instead (as you have). Also, to increase contrast, you can use the tone curve and put it into a slight 'S' curve.

But in the end, you have to realize that you're trying to photograph objects made of snow, in a field of snow, (in what looks like overcast lighting). There isn't a whole lot of contrast/detail to be seen. You're choosing a very tough scene.