New here, and need C&C on this picture.

[chademrick]

I have been taking pictures of wildlife on and off for three years or so, and am getting back into recently. Here is a shot from my Orlando vacation last April. Its of some sort of duck in what I think was Busch Gardens. I never paid much attention to it, but found it last night and started to put the finishing touches on it. I found that I really loved the shot, but the beak and face were over exposed and I could not for the life of me fix them. I have photoshop cs3 and tried a million things to fix it. I feel like they are burning my eyes when I look at them they are so irregularly bright. Any suggestions?

 

[HikinMike]

The best advise is to get lower, even if you have to lay down and shoot.

 

[Fangman]

One trick is to make a new layer filled with 50% grey and use it as a mask - just delete with a soft brush everything except the beak and cheek of the duck. You can reduce the intensity with the opacity slider. You will never get back highlight detail burnt out, but it does take the "sting" out of a totally white patch. I recommend shooting in RAW if possible and downloading the trial version of Lightroom 3 beta and having a play with exposure versus brightness and the recovery slider - even available in the adjustment brush as you can spot correct to your heart's delight with the original image untouched.

 

[EricD]

Here is a little touch up...your thoughts?

 

[chip]

usually if a shot is over-exposed, there is nothing you can do. This is because the data at the over-exposed area is saturated or "clipped". So no program can create valid data out of bad data. If a shot is under-exposed, it is much more workable. You can usually fix it in Photoshop.

 

[chademrick]

Thanks everyone for your tips! You're all really helpful.

Eric D- The face of the duck does look a lot less over exposed, but the beak looks very unnatural, so I don't know if I prefer it to the original.

I definitely do prefer not having an over exposed image in the first place so I don't have to edit it at all to get rid of that problem, but I loved this shot so much that I had to try.

Thanks again everyone!

 

[jtee]

Thanks everyone for your tips! You're all really helpful.

Eric D- The face of the duck does look a lot less over exposed, but the beak looks very unnatural, so I don't know if I prefer it to the original.

I definitely do prefer not having an over exposed image in the first place so I don't have to edit it at all to get rid of that problem, but I loved this shot so much that I had to try.

Thanks again everyone!

You keep shooting and you'll find this happens alot ...shots that you really like but they have major flaws, part of the game it seems happens all the time.......... practice.... practice.... practice............ and even then theres no guarantee of success. Part of the fun of photography.