few things about exposure

[ATipper]

i have to say it's really hard to choose the title.

is it possible for a single picture or image to have
over-exposure and under-exposure? i think the picture
i have which is a girl holding dslr taking picture of herself reflected on the mirror
has both of them. I'm not quite sure about my opinion because so to speak
i;m not professional or whatever.

I decided to retouch that pic. little bit
but before doing anything else, I needed to know
which part the pic. i'm going to retouch.
There were fixing exposure problem, replacing sky and
adding some vignette effect.

I'm writing this thread cuz i don't know if i have to
increase the exposure or decrease it :/. the picture
belongs to other person so i don't think i can upload or
attach it sorry for that.

I just need to know how to determine if a picture has
over or under exposure and if it has both is it possible to fix it?

thanks in advance

 

[Hoogle]

well you could do 2 exposure adjustment layers 1 increasing exposure and the 2nd lowering exposure and you can paint in via the layer mask where you want the effects to apply. however without seeing the image it may not be that simple. Some things are just not recoverable but can be faked via things like sky replacement or cloning etc.

you can go to window > histogram and if it is a center weighted graph looking shape then it is a balanced exposure if it is cut of to the left at any points this indicates over exposed parts of your images and to the right is under exposed.

if you can link me the picture via pm then I can tell you what is recoverable and what isnt. Or what can be artificially recovered.

 

[Steve]

No it's not possible to have an image both over and under exposed, but it is possible to have an image with highlight and shadow clipping.

Technically an image is properly exposed when the subject is properly exposed, I assume the girl is the subject.

But when you have a dynamic range greater than the camera can capture you need to make some adjustment before pressing the shutter release.
Fill flash may have helped.

Posting the original out of the camera image would help with a better answer of what to do now.
The method Hoogle mentioned is a favorite of mine but if you have extreme clipping in the highlights and shadows that means there's little to no data there.

Again posting the image would help.

 

[ATipper]

thanks for replie! check out your inbox

 

[Hoogle]

The camera metered for the sky and not for the subject so she became under exposed slightly but details were there just darkened.

Unfortunately because the image provided was such low quality there is not a lot you can do without generating Noise which can be fixed.

I found the simplest way was to create a new layer and fill with 50% Grey set it to soft light and use dodge tool on the model and the Burn tool on the sky for a bit more contrast and then fine tweaking it with a brightness contrast adjustment layer.

 

[Steve]

I saw the image.
Like Hoogle said it's slightly underexposed and that's fine.
There isn't any shadow or highlight clipping.
The biggest problem with the image is the lighting conditions that existed when you took the photo.

It looks like a flat, hazy mid day sky.
You can't fix the sky in the image, it's hazy and uninteresting.

I suggest opening the original image (not the tiny one you sent us) in ACR.
In the Basic window set exposure to +1 and Recovery to +14
In the Curves Window select strong contrast, go to Parametric and set darks to +50.

That should be a good starting point when you open the image in Photoshop.
All you need to do at this point is brighten up the girls face
by following Hoogle instructions in post #2.

You can drop in a new sky but it won't match the water which is also flat.