glare on skin

[kiley9806]

i was taking some photos of my daughter playing outside today, and fooled around alot with all the different settings on the new camera. when i got them up on the pc later, i noticed a glare on her skin in some shots, where the sun was hitting her directly. does anyone know what i had going wrong?

[tirediron]

does anyone know what i had going wrong?

Absolutely nothing; one of the skills that you will gain as you become more experienced is the ability to actually see these sorts of highlights and shadows on the subject while you're composing the image. Now, what you have done about it? Well, really a few of things: (1) Move the subject, (2) Wait for the sun to move, or (3) use a diffuser behind her to reduce the brightness.

There's very little that the camera can about things like shadow and highlights. Some of the higher-end DSLRs and P&Ss have software which will compensate to some degree, but even that isn't much good. It's one of those things that must be 'got right in the camera'.

[Marko]

Depending on how large the glare is and where it is on the face it, sometimes it's appropriate to leave it in. We'd need to see the shot though...

[Travis]

Couldn't we also use fill flash to bring up the exposure to cxl the glare? or no...

[Marko]

Couldn't we also use fill flash to bring up the exposure to cxl the glare? or no...

I don't think that would work as the glare will be substantially brighter than other parts of the face and adding more flash is likely to 'wash' everything out while still leaving the glare - but we'd need to see the shot or else we are just speculating.

[kiley9806]

sorry - i would have posted a shot to go along with the question, but something was wonky with my pc and i wasnt able to open pics to resize...

anyway, fixed that problem, so heres a pic with the glare on her skin (dont worry about the bad focus and other problems with the photo )

i was maybe thinking too high iso or something, but honestly, i buggered around with the settings so much, im not sure what i did...

thanks for the help guys!!

[tirediron]

Looks to me like plain old sunlight to me; very little you can do about that other than the options posted earlier, or try and use it artistically. That's really not all that extreme. Nothing looks blown, so a bit of levels and curves work in PS would probably bring it back.

Remember, settings on your camera effect the whole image; if the entire image was washed out, then it could be an ISO, or other. When it's a case of something affecting part of the image, then it's somethout outside the camera (generally).

[Marko]

I think this shot as a whole is a bit overexposed (I say this because I see no rich blacks). The legs are getting the brunt of the light and I'd try (they may be too overexposed though) to burn them in locally in a graphics program. The light on the face is acceptable to me (eyes aren't sharp though).

In general and people are finding this out for themselves really quickly, current DSLRs are much more sensitive to blown out highlights than cameras that still use film. Film has more latitude than most digital sensors and can record and reproduce a wider tonal range.

In many cases (and I do this myself maybe 25% of the time) you may choose to deliberately underexpose the shot by about 1 stop when the whites are too white.

Hope that helps,

Marko

[tirediron]

...In many cases (and I do this myself maybe 25% of the time) you may choose to deliberately underexpose the shot by about 1 stop when the whites are too white.

Hope that helps,

Marko

Yep! With film, it was expose for the shadows, develop for the highlights. With digital, it's expose for the highlights, process for the shadows.

[kiley9806]

thanks guys - great advice... i'll keep working on it!