Hi! I am new to this site and I am begging for help! So please bear with me and advise me all you want on the best way for me to upload images and use this forum. I photographed a wedding yesterday and my lighting was TERRIBLE..I would like to upload a few photos and have someone advise me on how to use Photoshop (7.0) in correcting these photos.

Thanks!!

Hi Shutterbugladee. Welcome to RP

Is this good enough?

Ken

WOW! You are quick!!!! I am a little worried about the skin tone color on the photo? Dont knock yourself out though....just looking for some tips on how to make adjustments in photoshop to lighten the shadow and background but keeping the skintones and dress in tack......this might be an impossible task huh??

Thanks again!

Tam

All the detail is their.

I used Image-adjust-higlight and shadow that brings up all the detail, then a bit of jiggling with the red level should do the trick.

Take the red down and there you are

Hi Tam. Welcome also!!
I tried not to do too much. Found white and grey points and balanced. Wasn't sure of any black point so left alone. Created a Shadow Mask, changed to Screen at 62% opacity. Selected shadows on arms and lightened.

Cheers
Dave

Dup image, set blending mode to screen. Reduce dup opacity to taste for general luminosity balance - bringing up background and brides face to normal level. I used about 70%

Layer mask dup layer - show all (white mask). Paint with black brush (large, soft, ~10%) on mask to darken areas which are too light, ie. the brides dress and left corners of background. Try to balance the lighting. The light is strongest at the left.

Selective Color. First Whites. Select a bright white area of dress with eyedropper and save a sample for the Info palett. Balance the Red and Blue to match the Green. Use the Info numbers for the sample and make them the same.

Now Neutrals. Sample a mid grey of the dress and balance that so that the RGB are approximately the same.

Larry

Tam
You are quite right my last post was a bit quick but it was 9.30 and I did not want to miss last orders at the pub. :dizzy:

I have now done the skin tone as well and now the background also looks better by reducing the cyan.

But to be quite honest I would not worry too much about the background unless this bride has complained. I like Duv’s and Larry’s post the best because they have corrected the skin without lightening the background too much.

Michaelbeard. Welcome to RP also. But you are using CS and Tam and I do not have this feature in PS7.


Dave what program do you use to get the curser on your screen shot?


Ken

I used a free Xero "seasons" filtre for this to bring out the green and red. BYW, it doesn't look nearly as good on here as it does on my programme, for some reason. :dizzy:

Ken, I use Snag It. All in all I think it was an unfortunate background for the bride. It's pretty busy and perhaps the only way to make the bride "pop" is to darken the background even more. Haven't tried it but just a thought.

Dave

duv,

i borrowed your rendition. i just couldnt really see trying to improve on the job you'd already done. but i wanted to try something with this.

masked the bride and flowers with 'edit selection'. inverted. ran a contrast/brightness to darken.

ran an average blur on background in selection (mask)

inverted back. sharpened all on bride and flowers.

cleaned up lines around bride and dress.

slight smudge/push on bride's face and other skin areas to reduce .jpg and other artifacts.

done.

Craig

I like the concept Craig. I also thought the bouquet was too far out from the body making it look a wee bit awkward.

cheers
dave

thanks duv. it was your basic work. i just touched up the background a bit.

Craig

OMG.....Everyone has done a WONDERFUL job working on this photo!!!!! Now how much do I owe each of you????

make a donation to the site and we'll call it even :) (seriously!)

and you're welcome :)

Craig

Hi! I am new to this site and I am begging for help! So please bear with me and advise me all you want on the best way for me to upload images and use this forum. I photographed a wedding yesterday and my lighting was TERRIBLE..I would like to upload a few photos and have someone advise me on how to use Photoshop (7.0) in correcting these photos.

Thanks!!

Hiya Shutterbug!
Well, as I can see it, this photograph is beautiful composition wise, and true, there's a lighting problem. But it's not nearly the disaster you are afraid it is!
I wouldn't dare alter your composition, as it makes a lovely statement. Rarely do you see the bride's dress shown off in a manner that compliments the design, the bride's figure, and captures her spirit. Good for you!

The thing I did was, to mask out the bride, by using magic wand, then when in mask mode, I simply took an erasor to the mask that was left where i didn't want it to be. Inverted the mask, added a gaussian blur to make the edges kinder, then darkened the background to make better use of the lighting that was there over the bride.
Added new lighting using my render lighting, then took a soft light brush, picked up her natural skin tone, and went over her skin shadows a bit.
Went into select colour, picked out the white, and removed the magenta and yellows til I was happy.
Sharpened the image edges, ran neat image to remove some of the JPG pixelization that showed up from the compression, not all though as you can see. Sorry.
And whala. What you have is a bit overdone lighting wise, but perhaps you can get the drift. Play with it, don't let it intimidate you!
Teri

I have Photoshop 7.0 and I have used the unsharp mask tool to do a little sharpening on images that are out of focus....but can anything be done to save this image??

Here's my try. I lowered the contrast, dodged the shadows on the arms and blurred the background instead of darkening it.

Pierre

Teri......I LOVE what you did! This is EXACTLY the way I wanted it to come out of the camera. Of course, I am totally confused on how to redo the photo like you have done but I will copy your directions and give it a try and play with it!!!

How much do you charge per image to retouch???

This is a happy occasion so I gave it more light. I also blurred the background again.

Pierre

Hiya Shutterbug!
Well, as I can see it, this photograph is beautiful composition wise, and true, there's a lighting problem. But it's not nearly the disaster you are afraid it is!

Teri

Teri, you're job of it is exquisite!!!

Maureen

How do I make a donation??

I achieved enhanced focus by copying the layer and then changing it to overlay mode and then by running an highpass filter at 1.5 over the copied layer to sharpen up the detail. This is just a 2 second fix without any additional enhancement.

Can I do this in Photoshop 7.0??

Yep most definitely in photoshop 7. You find highpass under filter->Other->Highpass. You find overlay as a selection in the drop down box where the layer thumbnails are displayed (just above, usually says 'normal')

The first thing to remember is that the monitor that I am using here is not calibrated, HOWEVER:

If one compares her skin tone from the orginal post to some of the examples shown, her skin appears to have undergone some remarkable changes, not all of which I think are for the better.

I think the one point that is being missed is that many have said they are using the dress to set the white point. I have found that many wedding dresses and other white apparel (shirts, tuxes, etc) have "whiteners" in them so they really look white under various lighting sources to the human eye. When we use these clothes to set whitepoints, PS reads them differently than our eye does so we get a non-white white point.

A really good reason to use at least a gray card or better yet a color chart when you start your session so you will have a good standard to measure from.

Mike

How do I make a donation??

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8496

see that link there to find out how to make a donation.

Craig

i have to agree with mike here. watch those skin tones, folks. i see one that went yellow, another that went pale and one that went red. monitor differences may account for some of this, but i dont think all. the dress is dominant here, but the focus is still the woman.

Craig

I think the one point that is being missed is that many have said they are using the dress to set the white point. I have found that many wedding dresses and other white apparel (shirts, tuxes, etc) have "whiteners" in them so they really look white under various lighting sources to the human eye. When we use these clothes to set whitepoints, PS reads them differently than our eye does so we get a non-white white point.


That’s an interesting point Mike. But surely you are not suggesting that this dress should be anything other that equal RGB Values.


Ken

That’s an interesting point Mike. But surely you are not suggesting that this dress should be anything other that equal RGB Values.


Ken

I do not know about this particular dress, but there are cases where the white clothing may not have equal RGB values in order for the skin tone to be correct. If I remember where I saw this, the skin was good while the dress went a little blue.

One could of course, place the dress on one layer, and correct it, while placing the skin on another layer and correct it seperately and on and on, would hate to have to do that for a great number of shots.

Hello from a newbie,

Just played a little with the picture. Sepia toned the image but kept the color on the bouquet.

Let me know what you think.

personally fpellerin, it doesn't grab me, as the first thing I notice is the background is way too busy and takes away from the bride. I personally felt the image with the background blacked was the most appealing, mind you, very nice job of sepia mixed with colour.

Hi,
I thought the picture was real nice, just needed a little snap. All I did was convert to LAB use a little curve in the L channel and raised the b channel slightly in the high 40s (near neuteral). Then I blurrred A and B Channels and sharpened the L channel. Took about a minute. Its not perfect, but I think it has good punch to it.

God Bless,
:cat: Rodi :cat:

Rodi, I really like the "snap" you added to the picture. I'm learning more and more about changes in LAB and get a kick seeing others working in this space.

Cheers
Dave

Different approach

Hi,
LAB is pretty awesome! It has changed the way I work. I have a print backround so I am generally mr CMYK (Plus Spots). I was first introduced to LAB by my little Linotype - Hell scanner software and slowly but surely getting used to LAB. Then I jumped and got a Drum Scanner which doesn't have a LAB option so I scan to RGB the convert to LAB in PSD, (V5 & CS).
I don't like making selections and or masks for the most part because they tend to look artificial and LAB allows for a more graceful type of work.
On my little correction I thought the photo was excellent and lighting a bit dark. I made the unconcious decision to make the bride (not the dress) the center of attention. I don't think trying to kill the backround could work in this photo, so I decided to move a slight blue cast towards yellow, which helped her skintone and keep the slight (very slight) magenta cast, because a slight move 49 to 50 makes the bride go to green, not too becoming. I also figured that the shiny parts of the backround could be sharpened and accentuated and distract the viewers eyes from the carpet and the green banners. The brides smile and flowers were also helped quite a bit in the sharpening of the L channel. All in all I wish I could get photos of this quality at work! Retouching would be mucho easier!

God Bless,
Rodi :cat:

here is my attempt using photoshop cs

I used levels and also hightlight/shadows adjuster

TokenArt