Recovering blown highlights - help please

[AndWhy]

Just got in from a charity event to discover I've blown the highlights with too much flash on a couple of people shots.

The organiser has already asked if they can use the shots, and if I can sort something quickly I'm sure the local press would like them too which would be great coverage for the charity. Only thing is, I can't, cos I don't do PhotoShop.

If you reckon you can help to quickly deliver half-decent jpgs from my .NEF (Nikon RAW) files, please get in touch via my profile and I'll arrange to get you the files.

Thanks

[Simpo Two]

How do you process your RAW files? That's the time to wring the pips out of your RAWs, not once they've been converted to JPG.

I find the usual reason for over-exposed flash shots is too high an ISO or too big an aperture - typically shooting outdoors after shooting indoors and forgetting to change the setings. (Forgive me for not volunteering but I've got 591 of my own to do from yesterday!)

[AndWhy]

Thanks for the response, Simpo. Good luck with your hundreds.

The scene was people shots outside in the dark. I had to guess at settings and I guessed a bit wrong. So I've ended up with two shots where the people's faces (three people in total) have blown highlights.

I don't use PS. So although I can process a RAW file into a JPG using Picasa and generally get the overall look how I want it, on this occasion the shots need selective editing (faces only) and that's beyond me.

So if anyone's up for it, there's two shots - one with 1 face and one with 2 faces. Only the faces need editing work. To be useful to the local press I'd need to submit them today (Sunday) but my main objective is to provide the charity with good images.

Thanks again

[RobDickinson]

BTW if your camera has recorded 255,255,255 on a pixel (or the RAW equivelant) the data is gone, lost, no longer there to pull back.

[S. Gonzales Esq.]

... which is one of the reasons it's handy to shoot RAW. I can't speak for any other software, but CaptureOne has a neat thing that enables you to cap the maximum highlight (or minimum shadow) values in the processed image. This means the resulting image can be run through Photoshop to reveal more than you thought was there.

Obviously there are limits to what you can rescue, but I've used this to restore an acceptable appearance to many apparently blown skies.

[AndWhy]

I figured that white was white.

Well there's definitely some data there - I've tweaked in iPhoto but can't get it to look particularly lifelike. A member is looking at it now so hopefully I'll know soon how much is salvageable.