Lowering exposure/highlights in background while retaining the shadow in the dark areas

[Adooby-doobie]

 Hello!

I'm using a Mac M1 and Pr 2023. I intend to lower the exposure in the background for this interview frame of the subject. Is there a way to reduce the highlights in the background without affecting the dark areas on the subject?

[Richard M Knight]

Have a look at curves in the Lumetri panel.

[R Neil Haugen]

There are several ways to go about this depending on what/how much you wanna do, and of course, how much detail is actually in those background brights.

If that area of brights shows on the scopes as a thick solid line, it's clipped ... there's no detail there to be had. No tonality. So showing this image with the Wave (YC no chroma mode) or RGB Parade scopes also showing would tell me exactly what could be done.

Neil

[Adooby-doobie]

Hello
I tried to use the curves to bring down the highlights and as you suggested looked at the Lumetri scopes and the Vectorscope. This is what they show. Could you please help me make sense of it? Is there any way I could rescue this interview byte from the burnt background?
I appreciate you for helping me, Neil!

Thank you

[R Neil Haugen · Accepted solution]

That's what I was afraid of seeing. Look at the top of the scopes, see the solid white line across the top? Notice the difference between that and the bottom, where there are constant level changes across the scope?

The top ... the bright area ... is "clipped" ... there is no data there. So there is no detail nor color to that area. You can make it darker by bringing the levels down, but it will simply be grayer. And this is across the three color channels, so there's no salvage available.

Without selecting that area, perhaps with the Track matte effect, and replacing it with sky or background foliage from another image. It's a rather involved task though.

Neil

[Adooby-doobie]

Thanks a bunch Neil!