Dan South 
, Jan 29, 2012; 12:54 p.m.
I have a photo that contains some areas with blown highlights. There's no detail left in these areas, so Lightroom's Highlight Recovery tool is useless. I was hoping to select the area in PS CS5 and replace the selection with another color sampled from within the same image. I didn't have any problems creating an accurate selection of the problem area, but all attempts at color replacement have been ineffective.
I tried Image > Adjustments > Color Replacement. I tried to use the Color Replacement tool. I'm able to select the color that I want to put in place (or set it as the foreground color), but pasting it into the selected highlight area seems to have no effect.
I'm not sure what the problem is. Does the blown ares need to be first lowered to a darker tonality before the replacement color will show up? I've been reading and reviewing dozens of articles and tutorials and following every step as prescribed, but alas, the replacement color remains invisible. Any and all suggestions would be appreciated, thank you!
Emil Ems , Jan 29, 2012; 01:31 p.m.
Dan,
The method I use in a similar case (assuming the blown section is not too large) is the following:
(1) Create a new (empty) layer. Set its blending mode to "Color"
(2) Choose the color picker and pick a color that lies close to the blown area and is light.
(3) Choose the brush tool and paint over the blown area. it will be covered with the picked paint.
(4) Diminish the opacity of the layer until the earlier blown area has just a touch of color.
Emil Ems , Jan 29, 2012; 01:34 p.m.
Sorry Dan, a small mistake in my earlier submission. In (1), leave blending mode at "Normal"
jf zhang , Jan 29, 2012; 01:39 p.m.
"content-aware fill" might help.
Peter Mounier , Jan 29, 2012; 01:44 p.m.
Your problem with using the color replacement tool is that you don't have to paste anything. You select the area you want to change, then go to Image > Adjustments > Replace Color, and within your selection use the eyedropper tool to select the color you want to change. Then just move the sliders and you'll see the colors change. Click ok and you're done. If you like to use layers, then create a layer from your selection and do the same thing to the layer.
Peter
Tom Mann 
, Jan 29, 2012; 01:54 p.m.
Hi Dan - The tools you mentioned, when set to their default settings, work more or less the way you said in that if you try to replace a pure white, you wind up with a pure white, but if you try to replace a mid tone, it can pick up whatever color you specify.
This is very similar to the way an ordinary brush in the color blend mode works. In the example below, I put a gray scale wedge on the LHS of the image, and then painted over it with a blue-ish brush in the color mode. As you can see, it did nothing to the pure whites and the pure blacks -- only the midtones. The pure whites are still 255,255,255, and the pure blacks are still 0,0,0.
If I am replacing blown highlights, I never use those tools. Instead, the simplest method is probably to simply copy some appropriate source area to a new layer, move (and flip, if necessary) that area over the blown area, put an all-black layer mask on it, and then paint white in the layer mask to reveal the replacement pixels and get a nice feathering between the new and the old layers. There are lots of other methods that can also be used.
HTH,
Tom M
Replacing pixels by a brush in the "Color" blend mode.
Tom Mann , Jan 29, 2012; 02:06 p.m.
PS - I don't like any method to fix a blown highlight that doesn't also texture the blown area appropriately. This means that when you are done, the luminance in the fixed area must vary appropriately, eg, to show skin texture and blend with the surrounding area.
Methods such as Emil's that involve painting (or replacing) pixels using a normal blend mode won't do this because the target area, ie, the blown pixels, have no variation in luminosity -- they are all at or near 255,255,255. If you try to use such methods, say, on skin, you will be left with a very odd looking, obviously patched area. This is why I **strongly** prefer grabbing both realistic texture and realistic color from elsewhere on the image.
Tom M
PPS - ZF Zhang's suggestion to use the patch tool is good. Unlike the stamp tool (which is essentially another method to grab pixels from elsewhere and paste them over the bad pixels), the patch tool tries to blend the new material better and reflect some of the luminance information of the bad areas, if available. I sometimes use this myself.
Dan South , Jan 29, 2012; 02:13 p.m.
Thanks for the replies! I discovered that Image > Adjustments > Replace Color was a bit of a red herring. It only lets you change the hue and saturation of the existing color, not actually "replace" it with another color.
I did have some luck by using the Eyedropper tool to select the desired color, saving it on the Color Swatches panel, and then using the Color Replacement Tool to paste it into my selection.
I'm now going to work through the procedures described above to see if this will help refine end result. Thanks again for the tips!
Tom M - Normally, I would use a healing brush to sample and paste in one step. But here I want to effect only the selected area. Is it possible to combine these two concepts?
Peter Mounier , Jan 29, 2012; 02:14 p.m.
I just tried the method I suggested and now I see that it doesn't work with pure whites, so sorry about the confusion. Carry on.
Peter
Peter Mounier , Jan 29, 2012; 02:14 p.m.
