Your advice on HDR-like enhancement for portrait

[f30055449]

I have only one RAW file, I didn't shoot HDR against the sun.

If I push exposure in Photoshop, I do see the face nice and clear, but I have had several attempts at "luminosity masks", or just plain masking, but every time the border between layers is not right, it looks like a cheap cut-out.

What do you guys think is the best method to bring back the model's face while keeping the background as it is ?

[Per Berntsen · Accepted solution]

Use the Shadows slider in Camera Raw, it will bring out the detail, but the colors won't be good, and there will be a lot of noise because you are moving shadow information (captured with very few levels) up on the tonal scale. (see Exposing a digital image )

I took your screenshot into Lightroom, and even from that I was able to bring out a recognizable face.

Btw, this is a classic situation for using fill-in flash, to lift the shadows.

[Per Berntsen]

Here's the screenshot with Shadows set to +100.

You should get better results with the raw file, but it will be far from perfect.

[f30055449]

Yes thank you that's a great idea, I do have much better results with the RAW file.

Actually I'm very happy with the results.

I'm trying to follow on this idea, i.e. trying to save several versions of DNG from Camera Raw, and see if can merge them better in PS as what happened with my previous attempts.

[Per Berntsen]

Actually I'm very happy with the results.

It may look OK in Fit view, but viewed at 100%, I'm willing to bet that there's a lot of noise in the model's face, as well as poor color rendition.

Always view the image at 100% to evaluate sharpening and noise.

trying to save several versions of DNG from Camera Raw, and see if can merge them better in PS

I'm afraid that's going to help much, you have a single image with a badly underexposed face, and there's very little you can do about it, except raising the shadows and perhaps apply some noise reduction locally.

[f30055449]

Yes it is a bit grainy, but not nearly as bad as the example above because the RAW is much better than the low quality screenshot that I attached as illustration of the problem.

I love the facial expression and this picture has sentimental value for me, so I am very thankful to you for telling me a method to save it. I know that I could use a flash for this, but had just my camera in hand, and with beautiful mountains in the background it had to be against the sun.

For some reason PS refuses to merge 2 DNGs, I have to convert the DNGs to JPEG and then I can load 2 images and blend them, so that's not great either you're right.

[Per Berntsen]

Photoshop cannot merge DNG files, but Camera Raw can. (at least if you have version 9.xx)

I don't use Camera Raw (I use Lightroom, which can do the exact same edits as Camera Raw), so I'm not so familiar with the workflow. But it seems that you have to use Bridge, where you select the images you want to merge, right click, and choose Open in Camera Raw. Then select all the thumbnails on the left, right click and choose Merge to HDR. The merged file will be a fully editable DNG.

Anyway, I'm glad that you got an acceptable result.