Jul 7, 2010

CS5 - Spot Healing Blown High Lights with Content Aware Fill


Winged Marvels, Bisti Badlands, New Mexico

Winged Marvels, Bisti Badlands, New Mexico

These magnificent hoodoos stand resplendent against sun’s golden rays in late evening. If my imagination takes a flight of fancy – I would say these hoodoos resemble large winged B 52’s seeking safe landing. Or, pterodactyls circling ancient marsh lands beside a Cretaceous Seaway - these rocks were created just before dinosaur’s demise…
The combination of ancient shapes, bas relief of sunset emphasizing the quaint hoodoo caps, and richness of color – full range HDR helps, but our magic lies in capturing evening’s aura of emphatic golden light!
I never cease to be amazed at the incredible panoply of landscapes scenes our Bisti Badlands provides enterprising digital photographers…

Setting the Stage…
This composite panoramic image was processed with Adobe Camera Raw (ACR), LR3, and CS5. Individual tone mapping controls in LR3 are built on ACR (as is CS5). But, only HDR Toning and Spot Healing (w Content Aware Fill) occur in CS5.
LR3 does early processing (Merge to HDR Pro, Merge to Panorama, and global tone mapping of 16 bit tif files from HDR2). For more sophisticated handling of 32 bit HDR files in CS5, you start with HDR Toning; Warning, it is not a universal panacea. In other words, HDRT takes some getting used to; you need to fiddle around with it to learn the range of options which fit your shooting style. Finally, if your files seem to have persistent blown high lights (BHL), you will want to zero in on offending regions using Spot Healing.
We try to give a general workflow for this series of activities; you can try one or you can go the whole gamut. What ever works…

Development of HDR Panorama
Two full range HDR image sets (9 images each) were Merged to HDR Pro from LR3 to CS5. Each file was processed with Local Adaptation by varying all parameters to convert the 32 bit HDR2 file (saves as HDR) to a 16 bit tif. Resulting 16 bit tif files were Merged to Panorama (same route). Then Lightroom 3 provided basic, curves, noise reduction, dust spot removal, and sharpening, before some final HSL adjustments on the 16 bit tif.

BHL – Blown HiLites (Blown High Lights)
A recent full range HDR landscape capture created that pesky old problem “Blown HiLites (Yes, I know: Blown High Lights [BHL])”…
On close inspection at 100% zoom, some sun reflections were blown out where direct sunlight hit hoodoo underbellies. Can we do to reduce this problem? We Merged to HDR Pro in LR3, converted 32 bit HDR2 files to 16 bit files using HDR Toning in CS5, Merged to Pano, attempted to reduce blown high lights, then ultimately, resorted to Spot Healing in CS5.

Merge to HDR Pro
Using CS5’s Merge to HDR Pro, 1st step – ALWAYS put White Point Slider on max – as far right as possible. Then, Remove Ghosts, choosing 0EV shot (presumes you shot manual - no blown hilites). Hit OK to convert 32 bit HDR2 file to 16 bits.

HDR Toning
But big changes come when addressing HDR Toning. Re-open 16 bit tif in LR3, choose Edit in Photoshop (Ctrl E), then choose Image > Adjustments > HDR Toning. Don’t forget: 32 bit HDR Toning will be out of visual range of your screen, so you will want to ‘learn’ how to read/sense significant color and tonal variations… BHLs usually ‘glow’.
Immediately reduce Edge Glow – pixels <30, detail <0.22 (reduces high light size). This helps reduce BHL, but NOT completely. I usually reduce Gamma to 0.89, modify Shadows and Highlights, add Vibrance, reduce Saturation, etc…
Now for some subtle, but gigantic changes.
Curves shows the original tif histogram (does not change as you modify working file [arrggghhhh… c’mon LR3]). Scale image to 100%, use Home and Page Down keys to scan whole file, looking for BHL and chromatic aberration.
When you find one, play with pixels and details in Edge Glow – can you reduce this irritating low-quality image situation?

Corner Points
Click on BHL with cursor; this places a mark on Curves section of Local Adaptation. The manual’s Corner Point description sucks (any surprises here?) But, that does not stop you from playing around with nonlinearity corner point creates. For example, set the curve point, then make it a corner point. If you move it to the left, you darken the BHL. Neat, eh? Just don’t overdo it…
You can also lighten some shadows and darks by simply clicking the curve and moving that point up. I find it pays to click where I have a particularly pesky dark; that adds more control to the lightening process (and does it with nonlinear curves control since HDR Toning is 32 bits).
BTW, although CS5 has been out 2 months, there are very few, if any, tutorials which talk about the process of converting a 32 bit file to 16 bits. I have not found any dealing with corner points, although I have been experimenting and find them quite useful.

When ALL Else Fails – Use Spot Healing with Content Aware Fill
Simply zoom to 600% (you can see individual pixels), choose Spot Healing, turn on Content Aware Fill, sample all layers, then go to town…
Simply add an adjustment layer above the background, then, holding down Alt key, choose a representative area near, but not on HBL, and begin Spot Healing. Representative area – a region whose color and saturation is slightly below that of your HBL. The [ and ] bracket keys let you quickly change brush size. I usually choose a small spot for my healing region, then increase brush size during the healing process. A Wacom pen tablet, with its more delicately controlled brush placement using the pen, comes in extremely handy for this step…
I am amazed at the awesome power of Content Aware Healing – one quick way to reduce those pesky HBLs so your images will pass state fair judge critiques with flying colors.
AT 600%, some of BHL consists of a few pixels of different colors with high intensity (local specular highlights). I chose Spot Healing, a background color not in direct light as my source, then carefully penned Content Aware Fill changes onto blown high lights. Occasionally, I found a few strokes would reduce the region to a more appetizing gold without specular effects. Truly, it was as if I was painting with a magic brush…

Photoshop CS5, HDR Pro, Lightroom 3, Spot Healing, Content Aware Fill, Fixing Blown HDR Highlights


This composite image shows before and after Spot Healing… while I could not control BHL w LR3, CS% did a superb job!

Enjoy…

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