Recovering lost & overexposed skies in steam train photographs
Right lets get one thing straight on this subject! If your histogram is over the cameras dynamic range on the white end of the scale than your in big trouble. If there’s no definition at all in the sky then there’s very little you can do to recover it…Cause there’s nothing there to recover!
But having said that if theres some definition (ie you can see some cloud formation even though the sky is over exposed) then all is not lost you can make it acceptable.
The best piece of advice i can give you on this subject is to take a deep breath & purchase a set of Lee Filters amazing Neutral density Grad filters they make them in full & half stops, they fit onto the front of the lens with the Lee filter adaptor & filter holder. Yes they cost £50 each but there worth every penny……I have 3 filters ranging from 1stop(0.3)to 3 (0.9). Get the hard grads the soft grads are very gradual so you don’t get the full effect until the last 1/4 of the filter. These hold in the sky but leave your foreground still correctly exposed. You can slide them up and down to match your composition and rotate them if required. As a rule of thumb i use a 1stop (0.3) for bright sunny days to enhance the blue sky, 2stop (0.6) for cloudy bright days & 3stop (0.9) for dull cloudy days. Believe it or not there can be up to 4-5 stops difference between correct foreground exposure & the sky!!!!!! Todays current cameras have no chance.
Anyhow here’s how photoshop can help you. The examples at the bottom show what can be done by opening the same image in camera raw but underexposing one image upto 2stops. Then you open both in Photoshop and move the underexposed shot over the original image, add a “reveal all” mask to the underexposed image that you’ve just moved (you will see it in the layers palette as a second image) Once done the image will look very dark,but don’t worry, select the eraser or brush and with it set to black you can remove the darkness from the foreground and other areas that were correctly exposed, but your left with a sky that’s looks pretty good!!! The same rule can apply to a dark image that needs to be brought up by a stop or 2…..i know there’s not pictures to guide you here but I’m assuming you have a pretty good understanding of photoshop….If you get stuck please ask and we could go through it via skype whilst your sitting in front of the image…. There are other slight tweaks you can do but there minor compared to this one…Have a look below and you’ll the effect it can have…….
I hope this helps anyone who suffers with this horrible problem, it can make a great shot look very naff.
Further info on this topic can be found in the May2008 edition of Steam railway magazine, where Ed Hurst describes this method with step by step assistance….Pay your local preserved railway a visit and find the emporium and slip them a quid for the May2008 Beano! It really helps.
Cheers
Jon.
Modified shot using the method described as above…..
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Original image with no processing……see the difference but you can just make out cloud & smoke definition!
