Figure 1 Original picture
If you use fool-proof software to adjust the face exposure, when the face lights up, the background may be overexposed and the photo will be ruined. Below, we introduce how to use PS to correct the exposure of the person's face in such photos and restore the true appearance of the person while ensuring that the background exposure is normal (see Figure 2 for the result after fine adjustment).
1. Simple but imperfect facial brightening techniques
The Shadow/Highlight command is a tool used to quickly deal with photo exposure problems. In the adjustment command menu of PS, we can find the shadow/highlight command at the lower position. By using this command, we can quickly adjust the exposure of the face. Open the Shadow/Highlight command dialog box, and we can see two command sliders in the command dialog box, namely Shadow and Highlight. They control the brightness of dark and bright parts of the picture respectively. The face of the character in Figure 1 is severely underexposed, so we move the shadow slider to the right to increase the brightness value of the dark parts. We set the shadow value to 50% (Figure 3) and look at the final result. The facial details of the character have been restored. At the same time, the correct exposure of the background has not changed much, and the problem of character exposure has been corrected.
Tip: The shadow/highlight command can also achieve more precise adjustments. Check "Show more options" at the bottom of the dialog box, and we can open the advanced command window (Figure 4) for more detailed adjustments. We can control the adjustment range of shadows or highlights by adjusting the amount, use the tone width and radius to control the range of applied adjustments, use color correction to adjust the tone of the photo, and adjust the midtone contrast to enhance the contrast of the gray areas in the picture. .
Although the shadow/highlight command can quickly adjust the exposure of a character's face, its precision and controllability are not very high, and it is easy to cause a lot of noise, color spots, etc. to appear on the character's skin. At the same time, the background does not need to be adjusted. It may also be adjusted to a complete mess. How to avoid these problems? Next, we will use more advanced methods to adjust the exposure of the character's face.
2. Advanced techniques for finely brightening the face
In order to finely adjust the exposure of the character's face, we first need to determine the range that needs to be adjusted. We use the calculation command to find those darker areas.
Find the Calculate command in the image menu, and in the command dialog box that opens, set the channels of source 1 and 2 to "gray" and check Invert. Set the blending mode to Multiply and calculate the channel. We can see that the darker parts of the image have been calculated to become highlighted areas, which is what we want.
Make partial adjustments to the channel, use a black brush to blacken part of the background in the channel, exclude it from the selection range, copy the background layer, and load the channel selection in the background copy. Press the "Ctrl+J" key combination to duplicate the background copy layer and set the duplicated layer's blending mode to Screen. Repeat the copying. At this time, we can see that the character's face is brighter and the effect is softer (Figure 5).
Compared with the effect obtained by applying the shadow/highlight command previously, the above image looks softer and more natural. However, the character still looks dull, so we continue to use the curve tool to make fine adjustments.
Merge all layers, duplicate the layer again, and use the Curves command on the duplicate layer. In order to make precise adjustments, we hold down the Ctrl key. When the icon changes to a straw shape on the screen, click on the dark, bright and mid-tone positions of the character to get the adjustment points as shown in Figure 6. Move up three Control points to increase the brightness value of the face. The exposure of the character's face immediately becomes more real and beautiful. At the same time, the background maintains a high consistency.
Finally, we made some fine-tuning to the picture, adjusted the color saturation, and performed slight sharpening. The "dark-faced" girl in the photo has turned into a "beautiful face."