I have a lovely photo of Anenomes but the white ones glare too much and I am not sure which tool in Photoshop will tone this down.
Thankyou for any advice.

It would be better if you could post an example or show a link to the pic some where.
If the highlights are too blown out you may not be able to recover them.
If you are working on JPEG then go to IMAGE>ADJUSTMENTS>LEVELS.
With the LEVELS window open get hold of the centre slider which is the mid tone slider and move it to the right and see if it lowers the blown out whites.
Bear in mind this will lower all the mid tones so it may be an idea to duplicate the layer first and after the adjustment is made erase the parts you dont want.
There are better but more compicated ways to do this.
It may be an idea for you to search the net for tutorials on Photoshop......YouTube has some good ones.  

You can't miss the white flower problem, I have tried what you said but still NO

I doubt very much you would pull this back as the highlights are completely gone.

In situations like this you need to take several exposures at different settings to get one that will capture the whole range of of tones.

Remember that although the human eye can see a complete tonal range from pure white to black cameras are unable to capture it all which is why you see pictures with nice landscapes properly exposed and the sky is blown out and has no detail.

A better way to do this would be to take two exposures of the flowers. Expose on so the darker flowers are exposed properly and one that exposes the white flowers properly and then combine the two exposures.

You would need to take the images on a tripod so that both the images were taken from the exact same position.

You also need to do it when the wind is not blowing so when you combine the two images everything is in exactly the same position.

If you can shoot the two pictures as I described and get good exposures for the white flowers and the dark flowers but dont know how to combine the two images in Photoshop let me know and I will tell you.

Eddie     

Yeah I agree those whites are just too blown for recovery.

there is a way that might rescue some of it....

go to......
image...adjustments....shado/highlights(full menu..click on box)

set shadows to zero

highlights to67%

tonal width to 60%

radius to 47 pixels...

good luck

arthur

Great tip, Arthur!  I've made a note of that.  It didn't quite fix the highlights on the white, but wow ... what a great result! 

The only thing I could think to do about the white flowers was to clone in some replacements ...

"If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough."  ...  Robert Capa

Wow Look at you auntie tk you have beaten me to it LOL and doesn't it look great. Will give it a go hopefully tonight after work.
Thankyou to Awjay and the guys for their help and advice

Glad you like it!  :)  It's a great photo, and I enjoyed working with it ... and I learned something new from Arthur as well.  Thanks for asking the question! 

"If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough."  ...  Robert Capa

Quote - there is a way that might rescue some of it....

go to......
image...adjustments....shado/highlights(full menu..click on box)

set shadows to zero

highlights to67%

tonal width to 60%

radius to 47 pixels...

good luck

arthur

Arthur I haven't got  shadow/highlights in my version of Photoshop which is 6

oh dear..

another posibility would be to ..

duplicate image.....

in the blending modes drop down use multiply ....... the effect can be adjusted with the opacity slider..

No this one has got the better of me LOL but at least auntietk had good results, thankyou for your help

Michelle -- Every little bit you do, every experiment no matter how it turns out, teaches you something about Photoshop.  Pretty soon you'll be using it like a pro, and will wonder how that happened!  LOL!  You're doing great.  Just keep playing and asking questions!  :)  -- Tara

"If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough."  ...  Robert Capa

Thankyou Tara feeling a bit frustrated this morning with PS have been trying to download a iridescent color plug in and cannot get my head around it LOL,shall move on methinks LOL

A lot of what you find on line for Photoshop might not work with 6.  :(  Check carefully for disclaimers about which versions are supported by what you're looking at.  You might find that in order to do anything with plug-ins, you'll have to upgrade to CS3 or better at this point.  Not good news, I know, but there aren't many filters made any more for a program that old.

The good news is that there are a lot of things you CAN do with 6, and there's plenty there to learn!   

"If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough."  ...  Robert Capa

Yes I think that is my problem Tara so I will amble along with my learning without attempting any more plugins

Good luck!  :)  I know you'll do great!  Give another yell if you need anything.  :)

"If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough."  ...  Robert Capa