My Family In the Forest

[The_Caper]

I took this shot in bright sunlight but I just liked the way my wifes head was tilted oh so slightly to the right and I don't know how to burn in the bright spots on my son's face.

 

[NJMAN]

It may be tricky to reduce the hot spots, because with blowouts, there is no more color information to work with. When you try to burn spots like that, you are working with pure white. You could darken it a little with the Burn tool, but it may not produce realistic results like you want. So, there isnt much more you can do with those areas.

The best thing to do would be to get them in a shady spot where you have some nice fill light or kickback light coming in. Then you can expose for the light that you have available, rather than compensate for the bright sun spots afterward. Its always easier to edit a photo with fairly decent lighting than fixing something later.

 

[nossie]

Assuming that this is the situation that we have to work with what else can we do to make the picture 'happen'? Assuming anything goes?

More fill-in flash + faster shutter?
Shade the people on the boy side and add a reflector on the lady side?

I think these are the very common situations that I'd like to see solved. What will it take to make this shot great (speaking exposure)?