Hot spots in photo (Flash Burn)

Bob The Fish from Alberta Canada, using Photoshop 7 with Windows Xp, writes in with:
[Quote:] I have some picks were the flash has made the fase and arms of the supject so bright i cant see. how do i fix this?

Here's certainly one way...

When the camera flash blows away important information you need to increase the density in those areas.

With the image open,

1) Drag the image layer in the Layers Palette to the "New Layer" button
2) Set the layer Blending Mode from "Normal" to "Multiply"

This doubles the density of the image.

If the darker areas are now too dark, set your brush to medium size, soft edge.

Switch to the Eraser tool and begin removing the new layer areas where the image is too dark. Be careful, and set the eraser to 50 to70% opacity so you can work up to the final desired level.

If the bright areas are still too bright, repeat steps above.

At some point you'll reach diminishing returns and the flash was just too bright for that subject in that setting.

TIP: Read the camera manual and find out how the camera sets its meter. Most digital cameras today have a two-stage shutter button... first stage sets the meter and focus and the second stage makes the exposure. The trick is to have the lens hot-spot see the area of correct exposure. So, experiment with pointing at a neutral color, press the shutter to the first "click" or stage, then move the view finder to the subject for correct cropping. See if that adjusts the flash strength.

Comments

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[Peter]

Hi, I have a picture of my friend. And it is a good picture, however it is ruined by his spots. Is there any way to get rid of this?

[Ryan]

I have two tricks I commonly use for hotspots.

The first works when there isn't really a true hotspot. (ie. the color values have not reached their 255 cap. You can see this by clicking on the hotspot with the eyedropper and looking at the results in the color palette.)

Make a Curves adjustment layer in the layers palette.

You can do this by clicking on the little black and white circle on the bottom and selecting curves.

Then, with the layer mask selected, change the background color to black and press Ctrl+Backspace for PC, Apple+Backspace for Mac.

After that all you have to do is paint in the effect with the brush tool, using a very soft brush and using white as the foreground color. Once you are done, you can adjust the opacity of the layer until it looks right.

The second trick is for use with true hotspots.

Here there is no definition, but rather everything is pure white. There is nothing you can do to give these areas definition short of cloning it in, but you can at least change the color to that of the surrounding area.

To do this, follow the same steps described in the first paragraph, but instead of using a Curves adjustment layer use a Solid Color layer. At first, you can pick any color, since it will be blocking the picture behind it. Once you have made the masking layer black, though, double click on the layer in the layer palette, and using the eyedropper tool select a color just next to the hotspot. This way the hotspot can be at least close to the color it should be, and when you're done it won't really be that noticable.

[raj]

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[Abby]

I'am about to be a photographer at a wedding this weekend... I have never done a wedding before and I'm kind of short on equipment. It's like this...I have a sony digital 4.1 mega pixel camera and that's that. I want to know what I can do on flash pictures. Please don't try to scare me any more than I already am. I have tried to fix the hot spots, but on my pictures it shows the subjects shiny face really good when I use the flash. And that's really hard to get rid of. Please give me some advice before Fri.
I have Potoshop 7.
Thanks!