Tutorial: How to save overexposed highlights in Lightroom

With storage being less of an issue than ever before and cameras becoming more powerful with each new iteration, RAW images have gone from something only the pros use to something that can now be captured in smartphones.

What is the advantage of a RAW photo though? Information. A RAW image, specifically a 16-bit image, captures and retains far more information from a photograph than an equivalent JPEG would.

It’s this extra information that allows RAW photos, often referred to as digital negatives, to be far more lenient in the editing process. Here to show just how critical shooting in RAW can be, Aaron Nace of Phlearn has shared a helpful video that shows how you can save overexposed highlights in an image by tweaking a RAW photo inside Lightroom.

It’s a wonderful video that breaks down just one of the many ways you can bring back the highlights in an otherwise overexposed image.

In this specific video, Nace covers how making multiple virtual copies of an image and editing each appropriate can make for the basis that will eventually become a slight HDR image. It’s an interesting technique and a concept that anyone just getting started with RAW images should watch and understand.

This trick won’t work on every scene, but more often than not, this hybrid HDR technology will get the job done and save you the trouble of having to toss out a shot because it’s slightly overexposed.