Quick Fix: HOT SPOTS

SOOOooo...it's been too long!! I meant for my Quick Fix Monday feature to happen every other Monday, but life is just too crazy busy for that to happen. I will try to do one on a monthly basis, so here goes for September.

Most of you know already how much I love I Heart Faces. It's a fantastic resource for new and seasoned photographers. Every Friday they have a feature called Fix It Friday.
They post a photo for you to have the chance to use your mad photoshop skills to give the photo a make-over, whether it's fixing a minor issue OR going dramatic and revamping the entire thing.

It's been awhile since I played, so when I clicked on the photo to "fix" I decided to do my Quick Fix Monday on one problem that stood out to me on this adorable photo. I immdiately noticed the hot spots on the subject's face. "Hot spots" are spots on a photo that are overexposed due to direct light hitting the subject when taking the photo. We try as hard as we can (or maybe not) to adjust our lighting and camera settings to prevent this from happening, but sometimes it's just inevitable.

To fix this after you've already taken the photo, we can use photoshop to remedy this problem. It's super easy, too.

First, the photo we are using:
I selected the areas that I think are "hot" that stand out the most.

This photo isn't really too overexposed, but it is just enough that it was the first thing I noticed when I saw the photo.

To get started, open up the photo you want to edit and then go to select>color range. Then select "highlights" from the drop-down menu.

Once you click OKAY you will notice that all of the highlights in the photo will have the marching ants around it. This selection of the photo may or may not be what you want highlighted...it's just selecting ALL of the highlights. For example, I don't want to change the whites on her shirt because it's supposed to be white, so I need to get rid of what I DON'T want adjusted.

Use your LASSO tool on your tool bar to do this. You will need to click on the lasso tool and holding down your ALT (option) key, lasso the areas that you DON'T want selected (this de-selects the areas).


Don't worry too much about getting EVERY spot you want unselected. We can use the feather tool to even out the areas. Go to Select>Feather and then pick your radius. I went with 5 px.

Next, you will create an adjustment layer. Click on the black/white ball that's at the bottom of the layers palette. Select Brightness/Contrast. Adjust the brightness and contrast levels until it looks right. This will all depend on how overexposed the areas are. Keep in mind that in most cases if you brighten, you will need to adjust the contrast as well.

And the final result??

and side by side for comparison... (click on image for larger view)

Of course, I couldn't stop there. This last image is my own personal, creative play. I ran the action, Summer Angel from the Sweetheart Collection I by My Four Hens and then added one of my overlays from my Celebrating Light kit.


Be sure to visit the other fixes from Fix It Friday. :)
Leora