Photoshop 104: Digital Flash Fill

This instructable will show you how to create a digital flash fill for your underexposed family pics. The process can be automated, which allows you to adjust entire video sequences.

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GoodCleanCrazy

I use Photoshop 6.0 (since it's the only copy I own). Your mileage may vary with other paint programs. (Cricket paint anyone?)

Alright, why would you use a digital flash fill? Well, if there are some parts of your image that are very dark, like say, the face of your daughter, you could lighten it to a usable tone. Not only that, but this method is a semi-automatic, painfree way to lighten dark parts of an image.

Step 1: Duplicate Your Background Layer

Duplicate your background layer by dragging the layer name to the "new layer" icon at the bottom of the layers palette.

You should now have a duplicate layer named "Background copy."

Comments

[Morrighan]

It's very useful, but you can improve it without taking a lot of job and simply. In the final result she looks a little bit green.

[Andrew546]

or you could get the same effect much more easily and quickly by making a selection around the face, feathering the edges, and adjusting the curves on the value channel, and not wash out the rest of your image along the way...

[royalestel]

You know, I was a bit depressed this morning when I read your comment, because I was hoping someone would find this useful. But you bring up a good point for this picture about just selecting the face. It wouldn't be practical for most pictures I adjust using this method, though--the selection would be much more complicated. However, I cannot adjust a "value channel" in Photoshop unless I convert to Lab mode first. Do newer versions of Photoshop always give you acces to the value channel? Anyway, the action I wrote is really fast and combines all these steps into one easy to use package. *sigh*

[Andrew546]

Hey, I wasn't trying to get you down! Its still a good instructable and can work well (probably better in some situations), I'm just saying there are other, possible easier ways to do this. Its all about the specific photo. some will benefit more from this technique, and others better from mine. Your technique is much superior when you have way too much contrast between you highs and lows, since it effectively even out the contrast. My techniques would be better when you have an otherwise well-exposed photo with a shadow over a face or some other important detail. As for adjusting the value channel, I'm working in the GIMP, which lets you adjust the value channel by selecting "Tools>Color tools>curves" I'm not sure what the equivalent is in Photoshop, but I'd be surprised if you can't adjust something like this.

[royalestel]

I usually only use the action I've saved without a mask. It's about 2 secs to use. Click. Drag. Click. Drag. As for washing out the rest of the image, a few of the problems with a lot of digital photography are too much saturation, not enough dynamic range, slow shutter speed in available light. Which usually leaves you having to use a flash, or end up with a blurry picture. In this case, with so much contrast due to the sunlight streaming in the windows, I had overblown highlights and pitch black darks with way too saturated colors in between. So the washing out was just fine with me.