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Thread: bright hair problem

  1. #1

    bright hair problem

    Hi Guys

    I am new to CS6 and going through learning curve these days. Same thing may apply to my overall photography skills. I have a big issue at hand at the moment and I need some help from the masters.

    Shot the attached picture in bright sun and the hairs in the beard are absolutely not looking good. I tried many methods explained in various online tutorials but no luck so far. The white grain oh the shoulders is silica something else which was already there but the hairs in the beard were clean. He doesn't have any gray hair.

    If I sharpen the image then the white dust like thing becomes more visible in the beard. The sun was very bright when I shot the picture and I suspect that it's the excessive light which is getting reflected by the hair making them white. But as I said I am new and may be I am totally wrong about the light thing, therefore I am here to get some help from masters.


    Can someone please help me in correcting the whiteness in the hairs?


    Thanks

  2. #2
    Moderator Manfred M's Avatar
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    Re: bright hair problem

    It would be nice to comment, but you have not managed to attach an image. Please refer to this thread on posting images and if that does not work, please get back to me to see if I can help.

    CiC does not host images directly and you need to use an external host and link to the image there.

  3. #3

    Re: bright hair problem

    Thanks for prompt reply Diver.

    I thought the simple upload will work like charm. Anyways the image can be seen at "bright hair problem"

    Anothet thing I noticed is if I save the file with highest quality in jpeg then the white dust is more visible. I couldn't upload the original highest quality pis because of the size limitations.



    Many thanks again

    Cheers
    Last edited by sdewal; 21st June 2015 at 03:32 AM.

  4. #4
    Moderator Manfred M's Avatar
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    Re: bright hair problem

    My suspicion is that what you are seeing is reflection from the hair in the beard. Hair of all kinds can reflect and even refract light. So far as I can tell, the image looks fine as it can for the harsh lighting conditions you are working under.

    So far as I can tell, the image is very much front lit, and my guess is that you are seeing specular highlights, not white beard. Shoot in a more shaded area and the problem will become much less obvious. Unfortunately, I don't think there is much you can do unless you want to spot the highlights on a pixel by pixel basis.

  5. #5
    Shadowman's Avatar
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    Re: bright hair problem

    Looks good to me as well. There is just one single spec to the right that could easily be removed by spot healing, also think about cleaning up the reflection in the sunglasses. Some would consider cleaning up the stray hairs to the side of the face, but that's a personal choice of every photographer.

  6. #6
    DanK's Avatar
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    bright hair problem

    yes, blown up in Photoshop, it certainly looks like reflections from the beard.

    You can make this and the reflections on his skin a little less pronounced in ACR or Lightroom by pulling the whites all the way down and then boosting the highlights a bit to compensate. From there, it is tedious and slow but not impossible to get rid of the reflections with the spot healing tool in photoshop, the healing tool in Lightroom, or anything similar.

    I don't know if you allow edits of your images, and I will remove this if you don't, but to show an example: I cropped the image, made the adjustments to the whites and sliders noted above, and spent a few minutes with the spot healing tool starting to remove the reflections in the near side of his beard. It's better, but not yet great.

    bright hair problem

    PS: please add your name and location to your profile. We use names here, and your location may help people give sensible advice in some cases.
    Last edited by DanK; 21st June 2015 at 05:29 PM.

  7. #7

    Re: bright hair problem

    Thanks Dan

    I shall try your advise with the RAW image and share the results with you.


    Regards

  8. #8

    Re: bright hair problem

    Hi Diver


    You are right, it's front lit. The sun was harsh and I was lazy to use flash to overpower it. But now I think the flash would have resulted in similar reflection from beard. As now I am seeing this picture on my laptop it looks smooth and with low reflection from beard. I wounder if the 4K monitor which I use for editing was simply boosting the reflection out of proportion.


    Thanks for your insights though brother.

    Regards

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