Digital BW, The Print

If you do enough fiddling, then shadow detail can usually be recovered, 
but not highlight detail.

The trick with exposure is to try and expose for the highlights rather 
than the 18% grey parts as you can then get shadow detail without burnout 
in the highlights.

In article <5.2.0.9.0.20030520152602.02ee7808@127.0.0.1>, 
stan@... (Stan McQueen) wrote:

> At 03:21 PM 5/20/2003, mark sharfman wrote:
> >I am still in the early stages of learning to use Photoshop to
> >correct the mistakes I make with intial exposures.  I shoot a lot of
> >figure studies in high mountain woods as I love the interplay of the
> >intense light, shadow and form.  While I occasionally get what I
> >think are great images, all too often, an image is degraded/destroyed
> >by a hot spot where that portion of the image gets completely
> >overexposed because of the F-stop range in the initial exposure.  I
> >have tried various PS tools (burning, healing and cloning) as well as
> >trying to isolate the section (via the magic wand etc.) and generally
> >end up with a section that looks (at best) pretty funky.  Any
> >references/resources on this kind of hard core retouching or other
> >advice would be appreciated.
> 
> My advice is not to use Photoshop to "correct the mistakes [you] make 
> with initial exposures." Hot spots and totally black shadow areas are 
> generally unsalvageable--there is simply no information there to 
> extract. The answer is to get the best exposure you can, bracketing if 
> necessary, and then use Photoshop to clean up the image and prepare it 
> for final printing--correct color balance, contrast, and similar 
> adjustments. Photoshop tools can make some adjustments, such as dodging 
> and burning, but it is limited by the information in the original image.
> 
> Another approach, if your subject is not moving (could be a problem 
> with figure studies), is to take one exposure for the highlights and 
> one for the shadows, then combine them in Photoshop. You will need a 
> tripod, of course.
> 
> Stan