Blown out sky

[Breezy85]

Hey folks. So I photographed a wedding reception today for friends of mine. (They had their wedding in Hawaii a few months ago, this was a second reception for those who couldn't be there.)

They needed some family photos with family members that couldn't make the trip out for their wedding and this was the best spot we could do with anything remotely interesting in the background. This fence with some ivy and flowers. But the sky is really blown out. Any suggestions on how I can remedy this??

**Side note, I'm gonna retouch out the power pole and wires and whatnot.

 

[pinecone81]

I would replace the sky with another, because there is no bringing that one back, plus you are going to be removing elements of the background anyway.

Sent from my VS995 using Tapatalk

 

[smoke665]

Couple of things I noted when I pulled it into LR. First is WB. When I sampled the brides dress it bumped the WB +25 and tint -1. Then made the following in the develop panel

The gentleman on the right could use a little shadow adjustment brush on the face to equal out to the others.

After adjusting the only area that I really noticed that could be blown was on the right behind the above mentioned gentleman. Pulling down the tone curve (top right) limited most of that. However I'm not sure I'd even attempt to clone out background elements, because the background is bad on several levels (poles coming out of heads, ugly chain link fence, power lines, etc). If you have PS it would be far easier to select the people and delete everything else, then use a background layer more appropriate for the scene. There has to be a stock photo of Hawaii out there that would work.

 

[Jeff15]

I would put a different sky in there too..........

 

[Peeb]

If you re-orient the photo into portrait from landscape, a surprising number of highlights are recovered...

Seriously, tho... I tried to find a legit background to swap and didn't find one laying around in my pictures folder. Finally gave up.

It's REALLY tricky (for me) to find the perfect one (what, with light balancing, colors, decisions on sharp vs bokeh, etc). It's doable, but it may take some trial/error.

 

[Jeff15]

Peeb, that edit looks great............

 

[Peeb]

Only one I had that was remotely close on the WB was a shot of the Yellowstone River...

Even more distracting (to my eye) than the original...

 

[smoke665]

Hey @Peeb is the groom really happy or is that a rocket coming out of his head

 

[Breezy85]

I would replace the sky with another, because there is no bringing that one back, plus you are going to be removing elements of the background anyway.

Sent from my VS995 using Tapatalk

Yeah that's what I was kind of thinking about doing, but I wanted to get some suggestions if that wouldn't be the only option.

Couple of things I noted when I pulled it into LR. First is WB. When I sampled the brides dress it bumped the WB +25 and tint -1. Then made the following in the develop panel
View attachment 159637
View attachment 159638
View attachment 159639

The gentleman on the right could use a little shadow adjustment brush on the face to equal out to the others.

After adjusting the only area that I really noticed that could be blown was on the right behind the above mentioned gentleman. Pulling down the tone curve (top right) limited most of that. However I'm not sure I'd even attempt to clone out background elements, because the background is bad on several levels (poles coming out of heads, ugly chain link fence, power lines, etc). If you have PS it would be far easier to select the people and delete everything else, then use a background layer more appropriate for the scene. There has to be a stock photo of Hawaii out there that would work.

I plan on cleaning up all the poles and whatnot in the background. This was the best option we could come up with for back drop. I'll probably clean up the poles and wires then add a sky in.

If you re-orient the photo into portrait from landscape, a surprising number of highlights are recovered...
View attachment 159648

Seriously, tho... I tried to find a legit background to swap and didn't find one laying around in my pictures folder. Finally gave up.

It's REALLY tricky (for me) to find the perfect one (what, with light balancing, colors, decisions on sharp vs bokeh, etc). It's doable, but it may take some trial/error.

This edit is brilliant. Haha!

 

[gk fotografie]

Indeed, when you plan to clone things from the background, you can easily insert another sky, I've just chosen a random (may be to sunny and blue) sky as an example, just to show the effect. I'd pay attention to some less beautiful places in the fence and also make more room (as seen in my edit) next to the elderly lady, because it's very tide on that side of the image. Some "extra" cloning is needed, imo.

As smoke 665 rightly points out, I'd pay much more attention to the WB etc.
Because it wouldn't make sense to spend a long time correcting an uploaded PNG-file to this forum, I simply pressed the "auto correction" button and found the color already much better than in the original picture. So imagine what a little bit of extra color correction can do!
Ofcourse, this is nothing more than my idea.

Success, Gerard

View attachment 159676

 

[Breezy85]

Indeed, when you plan to clone things from the background, you can easily insert another sky, I've just chosen a random (may be to sunny and blue) sky as an example, just to show the effect. I'd pay attention to some less beautiful places in the fence and also make more room (as seen in my edit) next to the elderly lady, because it's very tide on that side of the image. Some "extra" cloning is needed, imo.

As smoke 665 rightly points out, I'd pay much more attention to the WB etc.
Because it wouldn't make sense to spend a long time correcting an uploaded PNG-file to this forum, I simply pressed the "auto correction" button and found the color already much better than in the original picture. So imagine what a little bit of extra color correction can do!
Ofcourse, this is nothing more than my idea.

Success, Gerard

View attachment 159676

Thanks! Yeah I planned on doing much more fixing up on the photo, WB, cloning, etc. Maybe I'll see if I can add more ivy to the fence on the left. I just wanted to get input on the sky.

Thanks for the suggestions so far!