I took a family picture yesterday and it turned out well except for the brightness of the sky in places. This is the spot the family wanted it taken so did it for them. I am not a photographer, I just bought a new digital and was at a small wedding and took it for them. They have.....are you ready for this....15 children! I would appreciale some help . I will post the top portion of the picture that needs help. Thanks Neb

With 15 kids who can afford too many family pictures taken? I had hoped this would turn out well for them so I can print out a nice 8x10 for them and their parents.

I masked out the sky and replaced it with one from a Google image search of "blue sky". I made it very light to justify the flaring.

Pierre

panpan, I guess I should post more of the picture because it is not the sky that troubles me it is what the sky does to the picture, makes it light , let me post some more of the picture so you all can see what it looks like an dif we can do something with it to fix it. Thanks Neb

post the entire image

Can not do that Ken, do not have their permission to do so and do not think I can get it. Sorry. I wish I could. Neb

pierre's suggestion is a good one, but like you said, you've got the cast of light brimming over into the whole. first thing i'd do is crop out the sky. there's too much there anyways.

next, run a curves adjustment layer and a levels adjustment layer and bring down the brights overall. if it still needs more work, set a mask on the bright spots and bring them down more.

Craig

Hi Neb,

I tried duplicating to another layer and masking out from about the middle of the heads on up with a shallow gradient. I then took and wrote curves for the background (upper part of the photo) on the L channel in LAB to darken the trees and create a little more contrast. After that I did the same thing to the lower portion of the picture but adjusted the curves on the L channel to target the people in the photo and make them pop a little. I then went back and smoothed out the transitions in the masking so as to make them less noticable. I really didn't spend more that two minutes on the whole thing so with a little more time I'm sure you could improve on my results. I also didn't do any other correction. I hope this helps.

Here is a second pass at it trying to bring out more detail in the trees and adding a little more saturation to the colors.

I ran PS's Shadow Highlight to reduce the flare, set a curve adj. layer to sharpen, selected the sky and two shade of blue for a render clouds filter.

first thing i'd do is crop out the sky. there's too much there anyways.


Neb,
With respect to Kraellin's suggestion, I would recommend taking the whole picture into account before deciding how best to crop it. Though it may seem like too much sky to us, we are only looking at a portion of the photograph and it's really not possible to determine effective composition without seeing the whole photograph.

I reasoned that flaring is light "spilling" to the darker areas. So I selected progressively smaller rectangles, adjusting the lower end of the histogram darker. I then ran shadow/highlights, mostly to adjust midtone contrast.

Pierre

Nebgranny,

As a first step you could try some USM. Amout about 30 and radius 250, threshold 0. This is good for cutting haze and works somewhat in this flare condition. For haze reduction the usual amount is 5 to 20 ish something, with mid values usually adequate.

After that I would investigate other techniques such as masking. But this should get you on the right track as it is quick and easy.

Larry

Thanks to all for the help. I got busy tonight with grand kids...love them..So will try the posted information in the morning. leuallen, please tell me what that function is and where it is please. Thanks again :pleased: :pleased: !! Neb

Nebgranny,

In Photoshop is is under Filters->Sharpen->Unsharp Mask.

Larry

Hi panpan , Going to try your method next.

I reasoned that flaring is light "spilling" to the darker areas. So I selected progressively smaller rectangles, adjusting the lower end of the histogram darker.

Have never done this , can you tell me how this is done. R U using the selections tool ? and how does the histogram work? Thanks Neb :pleased:



I then ran shadow/highlights, mostly to adjust midtone contrast.

Hi Neb

The technique is new for me too. I couldn't figure out a way to do it with a gradient, so I did it incrementally.

With the rectangular marquee tool, select the right side of the image, starting at, but excluding, the middle trunk.
Feather 20.
Image>adjustments>levels; bring in the leftmost slider in to the point where the histogram takes off, i.e. about 65.
invert the selection; in the levels window, bring in the leftmost slider until that part of the image matches the rest, i.e. about 35.
deselect.

Now we're going to select a smaller rectangle where we still see flaring and correct it the same way.
select a rectangle starting at the top right corner, to half the face of the woman with glasses, turn at her hairline.
feather 20.
levels, dark slider to 45.
deselect.

Again, with the upper third rectangle that includes the leftmost tree's leaves (slide to 40-50 depending on where your rectangle is).

Now we do image>adjustments>shadow/highlight; shadows 30%, highlights 30%, midtone contrast +10.

To finish, you might want to dodge the darker eyesockets and to increase the middle trunk's contrast.

Pierre

panpan:
I do this step ..listed below and it turns like a negative ..is this correct. Image>adjustments>levels; bring in the leftmost slider in to the point where the histogram takes off, i.e. about 65.

Then where is the invert? Thanks Neb

I forgot to thank everyone for all the suggestions. It is so good to have this place and so many nice people wanting to help us learn. My problem is I just tend to forget everything I learn when I do not do things over and over, but I sure enjoy all the learning experiences anyway!! NEB

panpan:
I do this step ..listed below and it turns like a negative ..is this correct. Image>adjustments>levels; bring in the leftmost slider in to the point where the histogram takes off, i.e. about 65.

Then where is the invert? Thanks NebYou moved the wrong slider, Neb. I appended an example.

Pierre

ok I did just what you said at invert it turns like a negative. Then I go to image /adjustments/levels/ and use the SAME levels slider and put it to 35 nothing much happens it still stays like a negative. I am using CS2 bt the way??

Posting image of what it looks like at this step.. invert the selection; in the levels window, bring in the leftmost slider until that part of the image matches the rest, i.e. about 35.

Thanks Neb

ok I did just what you said at invert it turns like a negative. Then I go to image /adjustments/levels/ and use the SAME levels slider and put it to 35 nothing much happens it still stays like a negative. I am using CS2 bt the way??The penny just dropped! I wrote "invert the selection" (shift+ctrl+i), not "invert the image" (ctrl+i).

Pierre

I caught the penny.. ;) and a miracle happened panpan. Walla it worked and off I was to the races...it looks great..thanks for sticking with me . I am very happy with the results. I have a question , why did we only do the inverse selection once?
Neb :blank:

Good for you, Neb!I have a question , why did we only do the inverse selection once?We're using progressively smaller rectangles to cumulatively correct flaring by setting the black point. The areas outisde the current rectangle are corrected already, so there is no need to invert the selection.
Although the left side has no flaring, we still need to set its black point for other reasons. The logic of the previous paragraph suggests that we do this for the full image then select the right side etc., but I wanted to eyeball to left side adjustment to match the corrected right side. In this case that means going darker than indicated by the histogram. The shadow/highlight opens up that area again later.

Pierre

Thanks again panpan. I have learned so much from this interaction. I really appreciate it all. I am taking a non credit class right now and this interaction has been just as helpful as any class so far. The instructor is very good and knowledgeable , and so much of the class went over my head.We talked about color correction , and channels. I did learn a couple of techniques like using the snapshot and a way to crop at a set size. Things I did not know before. But he talked about 32 bit color and how computers read color and when it comes to math I am done!! However the man next to me who is a photographer was just as confused , so did not feel too bad. Have a good day..Thanks Neb :bow: