Howto fix high contrast outdoor scene?

I'm pretty sure that these can be fixed. I have tried various things and I'm at my wits end. I'm a little better than a newbie, but not much.

I have about 100 pics from our Yosemite vacation and would like to fix them to share at christmas.

Here's a link to a sample photo:

http://cards.webshots.com/cp-41675104-vvny-album/57875808iKiSRc

If someone could fix this and then post a how to or make me a filter, that'd be great.

email me at [email]benjamin22@earthlink.net[/email]

Thanks,

Benjamin

You can try to lower the contrast by going to Image->Adjust->Contrast/Brightness, but I can't guarantee that it will be better, for there is no detail left over from the overexposure and Photoshop can't remake those lost pixels.

In order to prevent from something like this from happening again, trade in your digital camera for a new one, because it's not supposed to overexpose a picture with the sun to your back. If anything, go with a manual digicam or SLR. It'll be alot more expensive but there's a huge amount of versatility with those cameras.

It's a Nikon CoolPix 850 (3megapixels). It takes either really good pics or awful ones. Our friends on this trip used a disposable and their pics came out great.

I'll try the contrast adjustment... I think I already did, but I'll try again. It may be unfixable.

I messed with it a bit and one thing that helped was duplicating the image and making that a multiply layer. There is nothing but white in the background, so unless you copy some mountains from somewhere, I dont see how you can make mountains out of white. There is no detail in those white areas, so....

Yep...you're hosed. There's no image data in all that blown out area to adjust.

Sounds to me like you need to learn a little more about your camera. Unless it's defective you should be able to get great shots from it. Learn about White Balance, if it's adjustable on your camera.

Most of the whithe is 100% white, so there is no details to rescue, by bosting the colr range you can save a few details, but the photos are still unuseable! sorry man...

Also, using ther flash is not alway a goos idea, the flash is there to provide ligh, but if there no need for aditional ligthing (like on most day outdoos scene). than dont use-it...

As utopian sais learn about your camera, its digital... so make some test befor making importants pics!!!

Try using the dodge and burn tools. They are extremly effective if you use them correctly.

just fyi, that's NO contrast, not high contrast ;) and you really can't do much with it, as has been said, there's just not enough information in the existing pic.

chris