Canon Photo Retouch - Applications

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Leaving the color alone, you will need to brighten the picture.

	Compensating for backlighting that makes the main subject too dark .

	If you shoot toward the sun, the background will be bright and the main subject will be dark. This is how to compensate for backlighting.

Backlighting occurs when the light source, usually the sun, is within view behind the main subject. If the backlighting is so strong that the main subject is black, there is no remedy. However, if the main subject is just dark, but not completely black, compensation is possible. If the background of a backlit picture is correctly exposed, the compensation can be confined to the main subject.

To adjust only part of the image, the following items are necessary.

This picture is backlit. Since the background is quite bright, the woman in the foreground is shaded and too dark.

From the Layer palette, click the [ Fill or create a new adjustment layer] button and select Tone Curve.

Using Tone Curve, brighten the image of the woman and the foreground. Don't worry about washed-out highlights (column) in the background right now. When the image of the woman is sufficiently brightened, click OK.

If an image does not have the correct range of brightness, parts that should have visible detail do not. Parts are white without any detail or black without any detail. In Japanese, they say “fly-away whites” or “crushed blacks”. In English, these do not translate, but we sometimes say “washed-out highlights” or “burned-out highlights” and blocked-up shadows.

When an Adjustment Layer is created, the layer palette will open with a thumbnail. On the left (A) is the thumbnail and tone curve. On the right (B) is the layer mask. The layer mask thumbnail (B) is a special interpretation of the tone curve (A). At this point, no correction has been applied and you are seeing no effects of compensation. That is why the mask thumbnail (B) is completely white (transparent?).
In the next step, you will erase the unnecessary parts of the mask with the brush tool. Therefore, click on the layer mask thumbnail (B).

		When you added the adjustment layer mask, the background became too light. Now, return it to its original condition.Choose the brush tool from the toolbox and choose black. From the tool option bar, choose the appropriate brush size.

	Choose the brush tool and the color black, and choose an appropriate brush size.

Portions of of the mask that are made black will nullify previously applied corrections so those portions of the picture will appear as in the original. The portions of the mask that are white will show those parts of the picture with the correction.

Clicking or dragging on a portion of the background with the black brush tool will return it to the state it was in before the brightness was corrected. Therefore, click and drag on the portion you wish to return to its original state.
The black portion mask the tone curve compensation.


	Select the brush tool and black color. Select an appropriate brush size.


	If you make a mistake, you can either change the brush color to white or use the eraser to correct the mask. These two methods can be used to correct the layer mask.



	The eraser was used on the half-blackened image to recorrect the image of the woman.

The opacity of a mask can be changed by changing the opacity of the brush tool. It is also possible to control whether the compensation mask is applied 100% or to some lesser percentage. If a background portions are masked 100% (returning completely to the original image) and the main subject is masked to 50%, the photo will appear more natural. The image below was corrected in this manner, making a more natural appearance.