Fixing up blown highlights

[seeker]

I have some pics I took in bright sun that are nearly blown in spots. I shot in raw, so I can bring the exposure down overall to reduce those areas, but that obviously reduces the *overall* exposure.

I suspect there is a way in Photoshop to take multiple copies of the picture at differing exposures and combine them all into one in order to eliminate these hotspots, but at the same time maintain a good overall exposure.

Is there any place here or elsewhere that explains how to do this?

Thanks! :)

- Brian

[aktse]

Use layer masks..

tutorial on dgrin...
http://dgrin.smugmug.com/gallery/2302389

[SloYerRoll]

Before you get all complicated.
Open up the images in ACR. Then mess around w/ the recovery slider (right below the exposure slider). In a nutshell recovery recovers highlights.

Now days I rarely ever open photshop for tonal or exposure anymore. ACR and Lr are fantastic at recovering detail.

-Jon

[LiquidAir]

Recovery works well, but sometimes I find it overcompresses the highlights. Usually I use a combination of recovery and exposure to recover the highlights and then use the brightness and tone curve to push the rest of the image back where I want it. If the color is unrecoverable, I'll then go to Photoshop and drop a curves layer on the image which I mask and then tweak to restore the proper hue to the blown out section. At the end of the day the image will often still be starved for contrast so I add a sharpening layer and use series of large radius USM passes to recover midtone contrast.