Shadows are hard to deal with. If you expose for the shadow the sunny area will be blown out. If you expose for the sunny area then the shadowy area will be very dark.
One way is to take a shot exposed for each setting and merge them. This can be difficult (above my PS skills) and even more difficult with any action/movement (like the cat in your photo).
Good luck. I hope you get some better more definitive answers, I will check back because I am interested too.
If your camera has a HDR setting, try that. It does what Ben (@bbf) describes above, but automatically. If you make the shots individually, there is software that can do the merging for you, too. Ben is right; dealing with strong light and shadows is difficult.
In a decent editor, you should be able to "recover the shadows" and "recover the shadow" content both. This is probably what simon is referring to.
If you don't do post-editing, then you might try your camera's equivalent of the Nikon Active-D lighting as you are shooting, or D-Lighting retouch from the retouch menu post shoot. I don't know about other cameras, but there must be some equivant in-camera function that tones down the highlights and pulls detail out of the shadows as you shoot without having to go the HDR route.
While indeed you can go HDR, it should not be necessary with this simple image. One tip. Underexpose to get the highlights with some detail in them. It is usually far easier to recover from shadows where usually not all the RGB channels go black. In blown highlights, you usually blow ALL the channels so nothing can be recovered. The shot you posted has just about blown away all the channels in the highlights, but some can be recovered. But you will almost always have to go to an editor.
Unfortunately, our eyes have a much wider dynamic range than even the best of cameras, so you really have to decide how to handle, shoot or edit shots like this. It is not SOOC, that is for sure! ;)
@amymay I use photoshop and it has a tool called burn. When this tool is used you can scan over the area you want to darken. I use it alot darken areas that seem to light.
You have a number of options if you shot in RAW. RAW files hold a vast amount of information that can be retrieved even if they appear blown (highlights) or clipped (shadow) at first. When i mentioned using layer masks I find this the simplest and most controllable to use. What you essentially do is process the same RAW file twice (one where you expose for the highlights, one where you expose for the shadows,) combining the two results in Photoshop and then 'painting in' the areas you wish to keep. Sounds complicated yes? Well its not really. Many are put off with layer masks but here's how you do it.
1. Open the image in your RAW processor and adjust the settings (exposure/brightness etc) to make the Cat etc look how you like it. Open the file into photoshop.
2. Open the same RAW file again in the RAW editor but this time adjust the settings so the highlights in the grass aren't blown out (again using the exposure/brightness sliders.) Open this file into photoshop.
3. You should now have two photos opened on two separate pages. Select the second image where the grass is exposed well. Press Ctrl + A then Ctrl C to copy the image. Click on the first image and press Ctrl V to paste. You should now have the two images in the same file one above the other in the layers section on the right hand side.
4. Now we need to add an inverted layer mask. Do this by pressing and holding 'alt' while selecting the layer mask icon (looks like a rectangle with a circle in it on the bottom of the layers palette) This should make the second image disappear, adding a black mask to the right of the second image on the layers palette.
5. Now select your brush tool and make sure the foreground colour (the two squares on the left hand palette) is set to white. We are now going to paint back the details that we want. Adjust the brush size accordingly and lower the opacity to about 20%
6. Paint over the grass with the brush which should start to reveal the correctly exposed areas underneath. If you go over areas you do not wish to then press 'x' to change the brush colour to black and paint back over it to re-paint the mask. You can then finely adjust how much you have done using the opacity at the top of the layers palette.
7. Flatten the image once you are happy.
8. The beauty about this method is that it leaves you in total control. You paint exactly where you want things to be or not to be, then you can reduce the effect of what you have done using the opacity sliders.
Hopefully that's simple enough for you but if not then just let me know, i'll be happy to clarify/help further.
Simon
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One way is to take a shot exposed for each setting and merge them. This can be difficult (above my PS skills) and even more difficult with any action/movement (like the cat in your photo).
Good luck. I hope you get some better more definitive answers, I will check back because I am interested too.
If you don't do post-editing, then you might try your camera's equivalent of the Nikon Active-D lighting as you are shooting, or D-Lighting retouch from the retouch menu post shoot. I don't know about other cameras, but there must be some equivant in-camera function that tones down the highlights and pulls detail out of the shadows as you shoot without having to go the HDR route.
While indeed you can go HDR, it should not be necessary with this simple image. One tip. Underexpose to get the highlights with some detail in them. It is usually far easier to recover from shadows where usually not all the RGB channels go black. In blown highlights, you usually blow ALL the channels so nothing can be recovered. The shot you posted has just about blown away all the channels in the highlights, but some can be recovered. But you will almost always have to go to an editor.
Unfortunately, our eyes have a much wider dynamic range than even the best of cameras, so you really have to decide how to handle, shoot or edit shots like this. It is not SOOC, that is for sure! ;)
I cropped most of the highlighted area because I only know how to crop and play with the contrast :- /
1. Open the image in your RAW processor and adjust the settings (exposure/brightness etc) to make the Cat etc look how you like it. Open the file into photoshop.
2. Open the same RAW file again in the RAW editor but this time adjust the settings so the highlights in the grass aren't blown out (again using the exposure/brightness sliders.) Open this file into photoshop.
3. You should now have two photos opened on two separate pages. Select the second image where the grass is exposed well. Press Ctrl + A then Ctrl C to copy the image. Click on the first image and press Ctrl V to paste. You should now have the two images in the same file one above the other in the layers section on the right hand side.
4. Now we need to add an inverted layer mask. Do this by pressing and holding 'alt' while selecting the layer mask icon (looks like a rectangle with a circle in it on the bottom of the layers palette) This should make the second image disappear, adding a black mask to the right of the second image on the layers palette.
5. Now select your brush tool and make sure the foreground colour (the two squares on the left hand palette) is set to white. We are now going to paint back the details that we want. Adjust the brush size accordingly and lower the opacity to about 20%
6. Paint over the grass with the brush which should start to reveal the correctly exposed areas underneath. If you go over areas you do not wish to then press 'x' to change the brush colour to black and paint back over it to re-paint the mask. You can then finely adjust how much you have done using the opacity at the top of the layers palette.
7. Flatten the image once you are happy.
8. The beauty about this method is that it leaves you in total control. You paint exactly where you want things to be or not to be, then you can reduce the effect of what you have done using the opacity sliders.
Hopefully that's simple enough for you but if not then just let me know, i'll be happy to clarify/help further.
Simon