INCREASING EXPOSURE LATITUDE OF NEF FILE      (08/22/04)

The

Photo Experience

 

Technical

PS Tech.

     

Tech. Intro
   

 

 

   

 

 

   

   

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

   

    

 

 

 

      

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ever notice that on high contrast images the shadows are too dark and  highlights too light.  (Typical of trees and boulders in a mountain scenic.) That's because of the limited exposure latitude of film.  The human eye can see 16 levels of light between white and black while slide film can only capture 3 levels and negative film  5 levels.  Digital exposure latitude is more similar to negative film but with digital, there is a technique to increase the exposure latitude even further.  

  

The technique involves taking a single RAW image, optimizing the highlights and saving it as a TIFF file, then optimizing the shadows and saving it as a separate TIFF file, combining both files in Photoshop, and then deleting the undesirable shadow areas with the History tool.

  

1.

Open Nikon Capture.
2. Open RAW file to be corrected.

3.

 

Under Advance Raw, slide "exposure comp" to optimize highlights, rename, save as TIFF.

4.

 Slide "exposure comp" to optimize shadows, rename, save as TIFF.
5. Open PhotoShop. Open both files optimized above.

6.

 

Select MOVE TOOL ... hold down SHIFT KEY ... move shadows image over highlights image. (automatically lined up)

7.

  

Shadows optimized image will be under highlights optimized image.  Use HISTORY TOOL & soft brush to reveal corrected sections of shadows opt. image.
8. Flatten image, rename and save as TIFF.  Continue work flow.

    

 

 

Original

Highlights Opt.

Shadows Opt.

Balanced

enlarge view

No other other corrections or modifications have been made to the images above.