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How to Restore Underexposed Portraits

When it comes to street photography, speed is of essence. Things happen fast around you and you are not in control. Sometimes, we just quickly snap the pictures only to find out that the subject is not exposed correctly. So, it’s always best to shoot in RAW, because even if the photo is underexposed, you can always restore the image in PhotoDirector.

In this tutorial, we will take this image of a lady waking in front of me taken at a temple in Nepal. The face turned out to be underexposed.

In PhotoDirector there are 5 sliders to adjust exposure: Exposure for global adjustment and Black, Blackest, Midtone, Bright and Brightest will only adjust partially.
To fix underexposure, we can start by adjusting Black and Blackest sliders until the image restores its colors.

Next step is to give the image more punch by adjusting the white balance to give it more warmth and increase clarity.

The final step is to adjust sharpness and removing noise.

And the final image here:

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