Shooting dark foreground with light background

[Tintype_18]

My amateur status is showing. Here's a photo I took back in August. Did edit with PSE but can't get the background right; white stripes turn red. Can eliminate them by moving the "White" to the extreme left. This was under a shelter in daylight.. Flash?

Canon T7 1500D 1/200 f/8 36mm ISO 400 Shot at 5:56 PM

Recommendations are most welcome. Thanks.

[Danny]

Hi, Tintype_18!

Were you trying to include an image?  If so, then when you're composing your message, click the "Insert/Edit Image" icon at the top of the text box. It's near the center of the formatting options ribbon and it's a square with a pair of mountain peaks in it. Click on it and you'll get more instructions.

That's all there is to it. We look forward to seeing what you share!

[Tintype_18]

Had to go back to add the image. Senior moment. Lots of them these days.

[wchettel]

Hi Tintype,

In PSE, try this: File > Open in Camera Raw, then play with the Highlights and Shadows sliders. Move Highlights to the left to decrease and move Shadows to the right. You can easily reset a slider to the starting default by double-clicking the pointer.

When you're satisfied with the adjustments, click the Open button at the bottom-right - that takes you back to the PSE Editor where you can make other edits and save your photo.

[jrhoffman75]

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@Tintype_18 wrote:

My amateur status is showing. Here's a photo I took back in August. Did edit with PSE but can't get the background right; white stripes turn red. Can eliminate them by moving the "White" to the extreme left. This was under a shelter in daylight.. Flash?

Canon T7 1500D 1/200 f/8 36mm ISO 400 Shot at 5:56 PM

Recommendations are most welcome. Thanks.

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If the white highlights are showing red I am guessing you have the highlight warning turned on. 

[Tintype_18]

Walter, I did play around with the various sliders to see what effect they produced. Interesting. My PSE for Dummies has a few pages devoted to this subject; use in Guided or Expert setting. I have a number of RAW photos that I can experiment with to get the desired result.

Had the opposite for the afternoon seminar. There were banners in the background but there was a lot of light from a set of double doors.

John, where do I disable the warning? Thanks for the info.

BTW, I took around 300 photos from Friday evening to Saturday evening. For some, that might not be a lot. A friend told of taking transparencies, getting them developed, sorting and sending to editors along with an article. Ah, the good ol' days!

[jrhoffman75]

To turn off highlight/clipping warning there should be a little box in upper right corner of the histogram display. Just click on that box. 

[ebiggs1]

A lot of the time, well, actually most of the time new folks try to make a simple job very much more difficult than it is. If you have a P mode snapshot let it be a P mode snapshot. You do not need any of the extraordinary features that come with your camera.

And, to add to that, when you post edit keep it simple, too. One click with the Levels tool on a neutral gray area will correct the WB. Almost every photo you take will have something that is 18% neutral grey in it. If you shoot Raw like I have been admonishing you, you will have greater latitude for correction. In this case the ladies pants is neutral grey. One click fixes WB.

You can then work on exposure which is also missed because of the bright BG.

[ebiggs1]

"This was under a shelter in daylight.. Flash?"

Flash, no Photoshop!

" Did edit with PSE but ..."

First, your white balance (WB) is way off.  I think I mentioned that to you a while back. If you will just use the correct WB a lot of your problems will go away. One of the trickiest shots to do is a dark foreground and a very bright back ground (BG). This is because you exceed the dynamic range (DR) of your camera.

One solution is to shoot two shots. One exposure for the foreground and one for the BG. Then merge them in PS. Another is to learn how to use layers and masks in PS and always shoot Raw. Is this more what you are looking for?

[ebiggs1]

BTW, you might try to downsize you u/l to the forum. The last one, we are discussing, is 41"  and 2+megs. My reply was 950KB. It will speed up your u/l.