Adv. Photoshop help needed Plz

[James01]

Hi all,

This picture unfortunately was taken without fill-in flash; I have some experience with Photoshop and have subsequently tried messing with it but without much success. Any help will be appreciated.

This is the original image without anything done to it.

[IMG]http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a29/Yavist/f286ebb9.jpg[/IMG]

As you can see the adult face is almost completely shadowed, the boy's isn't much better. I've tried dodging, curves and contrast but can't seem to get a satisfactory result. All I've managed to do is create a white fog like cast over the faces

Thx in advance,

James

[GetCarter]

Hmmm... are you sure you have your monitor calibrated correctly? Adult face looks pretty good here. What does it look like printed out?

Steve

[Mr Noble]

Both Faces look pretty fine on mine too. Light dodging of the taller chap would be all thats needed.

GN

[_dobbo_]

Thirded, looks fine here, and my monitor is reasonably well calibrated.

[simpo two]

I see what you mean. Try selecting the offending areas, then use Levels. It might help.

[james01]

GetCarter said:

Hmmm... are you sure you have your monitor calibrated correctly? Adult face looks pretty good here. What does it look like printed out?

Monitors and printer are calibrated. When printed, still very dark.

Mr Noble said:

Both Faces look pretty fine on mine too. Light dodging of the taller chap would be all thats needed.

I've tried dodging, but can't seem to get rid of that washed out white fogginess, especially on the adults face. This is what I've done so far: Subtle S Curve, Dodged the chaps eyes 30%, Dodged the boy's eyes 20%, Burnt in the chaps hair 30%
Here is a sample: [IMG]http://i8.photobucket.com/albums/a29/Yavist/2.jpg[/IMG]

I'm gonna try what Simpo suggested next.

If you have a little time and don't mind, can any of you guys have a go? Thx for the input so far. I can send over the original file if needed.

J

[te51cle]

Masked the man's face and made a few adjustments with a combination of a levels adjustment layer on top of a curves layer. :

[james01]

Thx T,

That don't look bad at all I've sent you an email.

Thx mate

Edited to say: I was about to send you an email, however new members can't for the first 24 hours.

Do you mind sending me the psd file with all the adjustments? To: [e-mail]

Thx again for your time and effort.

James

[joust]

Like this?



All I did was use the mask tool to mask out the people, do a small levels change on them, but then feathered and flipped the mask and corrected the background darker.

Your printer and brain should then sort out the whole thing to make the people brighter.

Brightness is a very 'relative' thing, and you need a balanced background IMHO to make it work.

PSD file post change is here

www.lotus-elise.org.uk/ephotozine/james01mod.psd

Opps - just noticed I didn't "mask" all the way down the picture - but it shows the idea more closely. Sorry - was doing it in a hurry.

J

>> Edited by joust on Monday 15th August 23:01