RAW slacking

[coldclimb]

Hey folks, I'm experimenting and trying to learn to use RAW. I snapped a few shots yesterday of a line we had up in RAW to mess around some, and I'm wondering what you all think of this one. The sky was completely blown in a small portion of the upper left, though I suppose if I wanted to take the time to blend two versions of the image it would help a lot, at least reducing the size of the blown area. Let me know if there's any other ways I could fix this one up better. :):

I also rode my bike through an intense thunderstorm complete with lightning and hail, which we never get here in Wasilla, and nearly broke the playground, but that's another story. :rofl

[robscomputer]

I would also be interested in the solution to this problem with blown out sky. I have read that CS2 has a recovery funcation to save blown out high lights but haven't tested it yet.

Rob

[Nikolai]

Something like this?
http://nik.smugmug.com/photos/22987293-L.jpg

Sorry for a lousy masking job...

[tmlphoto]

Try the hightlights slider under Hightlight/shadows if you have PS CS. You can get alot more detail/drama in the clouds and it only takes about 10 seconds to do. There is not much to recover in the upper left corner, but it doesn't really bother.

[coldclimb]

Something like this?


Sorry for a lousy masking job...
Hmm, playing with the RAW file now I can see that the sky really is blown completely. The best I could get was very much similar to yours. I guess it's not BLOWN really, but rather just a really light shade of solid color cloud, so it looks blown. Nothing much to do there except clone in clouds with texture and make the pic fake, I guess... :D I don't think I'll do that though.

[Maki]

Hmm, playing with the RAW file now I can see that the sky really is blown completely. The best I could get was very much similar to yours. I guess it's not BLOWN really, but rather just a really light shade of solid color cloud, so it looks blown. Nothing much to do there except clone in clouds with texture and make the pic fake, I guess... :D I don't think I'll do that though.
If you have CS and use Adobe ACR, don't forget to try holding down the ALT key while moving the exposure slider. This will show you which areas are being blown, and can adjust accordingly. This allows for another method of masking by creating two versions (or three) of the original pic and blend in the favorable aspects to increase (well, not really) the dynamic range of the final image.

[coldclimb]

If you have CS and use Adobe ACR, don't forget to try holding down the ALT key while moving the exposure slider. This will show you which areas are being blown, and can adjust accordingly. This allows for another method of masking by creating two versions (or three) of the original pic and blend in the favorable aspects to increase (well, not really) the dynamic range of the final image.
A good tip. I've read this before just in the last few days, but forgot about it. Thanks for reminding me, it helps out quite a bit! :D