Recover a Photo in Photoshop

Photo Data Recovery

This tutorial will explain about photo data recovery using photoshop.

I’m a keen photographer and have been for a while now. But when I started taking photos with my DSLR it was on FINE .jpeg mode and that was great for a quick snapshot. I quickly learned though that some photos have the potential to be stunning, if only they were shot with the correct settings.

Personally for me, I now always shoot in RAW mode, this gives me total control over the whole photo and editing process. I may have been in a rush when out taking photos but now its in RAW mode, I have the oppertunity for fine tuning and adjustments when  I get home, taking my time and in a relaxed environment with no stressing.

Imagine this, you take a photo with great composition and a great subject, but you underexposed or over exposed it? Well in .jpeg your stuffed mostly, you may be able to “drag” some detail back but you will be fighting a loosing battle there. But in .RAW we have so many more options to help RECOVER data of your stunning photo……

Ok so choose a photo, i’m just going to assume you already have one of these and that’s why you here …..

Underexposed

underexposed photo

Ok so in the photo above, it looks as though the Digital SLR has exposed this photo for the background.Thus making the foreground”underexposed”, now there are a number of reason for this but that is another tutorial if you are interested.

So this “could” be one of those photos that just gets deleted, but wait!

Camera RAW Screen

underexposed Camera RAW screen

Ok so we have opened up our photo and as you can see, the setting are all default…

Below is a closer view of them… as you can see just by looking at the histogram ( in the top section ) that this photo is under exposed.

underexposed RAW settings

So we are going to change some of these setting and see what happens.

Recovery Settings

So look at the histogram again, can you see the difference?

I’ve adjusted most of the sliders below but the most important ones are Exposure and Fill Light and a little bit of Brightness, the rest of them are also important but work on them after the main ones I just mentioned.

histogram and raw settings

This is what you should be looking at once you have adjusted the sliders in the Camera Raw Screen.

Camera RAW Screen

Now I have changed them you can see the objects in the forground, now I know this isnt the perfect example as now the background is “overexposed” and you would be correct. But for this tutorial were not interested in the background right now.

If you was interested in having the beautiful background and the foreground then you would be looking at doing a HDR photo, also known as a High Dynamic Range photo, this will be covered in another photo if you want me to, just let me know.

Recovered Photo Data

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Also in regards to photo data recovery, consider using a backup service like dropbox to keep your photos safe.

They also cover:- hard drive data recover via the use of backups. Anything backup related.

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