Working around harsh lighting in Photoshop

 My wife and I went to the Boys Toys exhibition at Hard Rock yesterday. It ran from 12 to 5 which is a rough time for photography due to the sun being directly overhead creating harsh shadows. I had not brought a flash unit which would have helped ( I'll cover using flash as fill light in bright sunlight in a future blog). I was, however, able to compensate most of the time by adjusting in - camera settings. There were some shots that I thought were good compositions upon review that had too many shadows. Luckily there is Photoshop!

 Here is a before and after of my wife posing with the Miami Dolphins mascot and two cheerleaders:














 This was a simple fix. I merely had to adjust the exposure settings for the entire image and we were set.

 The next one is a little more complicated.These girls passing out ice tea samples had hats that created harsh shadows across their faces:

 In this case, I used the quick selection tool and selected around each one of their faces, then added a new exposure adjustment layer and adjusted just their faces.

Here is another example where, using the same technique of selection and adjusting exposure, I adjusted these two ladies whole bodies while leaving the rest of the image untouched.

 There are times when bright overhead sunlight is helpful as in the following shots:

 And, finally, Here is a shot of the beautiful Lauren of the Miami Dolphins Cheerleaders.
 No photoshop needed.

Until the next time, remember it's another day in paradise and keep shooting.