Retouch gurus,

I am novice to photo editing. In the attached photo, the person's face is partially covered with shadow due to the nearby tree. Can someone suggest me how exactly I can correct such a photo ? I have many such photographs to be rectified :(

Thanks in advance for all your help.

Pranav

Hi Pranav,

Well, this is REALLY quick and dirty, but is this something like what you had in mind?

Could you tell what tools you used please, I'm trying this picture for hour now, with manipulating levels, curves and dodge and all results devastate face, colors too much :/

Hi pranavy,
Copy the bg layer and set to screen mode. Then make a mask of his face and gaussion blur (8.2) the mask. I hope this helps.
Ray

Here's my attempt. Just some d&b on the entire shadow area, clean up on the eye, crop and remove pen.

The image was small and not great quality but it turned out ok. IMHO

This is my try.
dc

Could you tell what tools you used please, I'm trying this picture for hour now, with manipulating levels, curves and dodge and all results devastate face, colors too much :/

How are you dodging? If you are going to use PS dodge tool use it at a very low exposure and on the midtones for this image.

I suggest duplicating the layer filling it with 50% gray and changing to mode of the layer to Overlay. Then taking a soft brush at about 3-12% flow and paint with black or white to dodge and burn. make lots of slight adjustments. This way you can erase if you need to do so and it will restore or you can delete the layer and start over. it's a nondestructive way to dodge and burn. I hope this helps.

Hi Pranav.

Welcome to Retouch Pro

I increased the size (posted image is a bit small)
Lots of selective levels adjustments.
A little cloning on the wall
Some colouring on the shirt

Sharpened
Neat Image (on face only)

Also some selective hue/sat to reduce colour on neck and forehead.

Ken.

Could you tell what tools you used please, I'm trying this picture for hour now, with manipulating levels, curves and dodge and all results devastate face, colors too much :/

Hi michalj,

Here's the technique I used:

Duplicate layer
Change the duplicate's blending mode to Exclusion
New Layer
Apply Image to the new layer and delete the layer set to Exclusion

You should now have two layers, your background layer and a layer that shows the Exclusion version of the image. That layer should be set to the Normal blending mode.

I then masked out the Exclusion layer, painting it back where I wanted the shadow to disappear.

After that, I sampled some colour from his face and used that to paint over areas that had become a little desaturated.

I finished off by tweaking the colour a little with a Curves adjustment

It may not be the most elegant solution, but it’s pretty quick.

Screen or Linear Dodge would have probably worked well, too.

Hope that helps.

Hi Panavy.....

I just finished typing about 10 steps to achieve the results below but when I tried to upload the photo, my browser couldn't find the server...... basically, I:

Converted to Lab color

Ctrl+J to duplicate layer and set blend mode to Screen

Adjusted opacity of this layer

Reduced the Saturation

Flattened

Selected the shadow area

Added Curves Adj. layer and lightened then blurred harsh edges

Adjusted opacity of that layer

Flattened

Some cloning and Dodge & Burn

I'm so sorry this was cut short, I normally give detailed steps (I gave them the first time around but am rushed now)...

Beth

Hi there

With my version I switched to lab then use the lightness channel and curves to lighten the face.

Butch

I selected the shadow area with a 15 pixel lasso and used curves to lighten and change color, then "hue" to increase saturation.
Hopefully the set of curves and hue shift are attached! I'm still new at this

Had a quick go with this (about 2-3 mins).

Duplicated to new layer, applied levels to this layer, then masked areas I didn't want to lighten. Then I increased the saturation of the new layer and sharpened the layer as well.

Still needs a little hand work to improve around the moustache area, but gets you somewhere close and gives you a starter.

Did a rough selection of the shadowed part of the face, made it into a mask, gaussian blurred the mask to muddy the edges and then used a curves adjustment followed by a levels adjustment

I did a really quick D&B and color tweak, but it seems do-able, if u spend some time on it.

curve layer to open shadow up, then some curves in color mode to reintroduce a somewhat matching color of his forehead and neck area.

also removing the shadow that continues onto the wall off his shoulder helps abit.

small pic brings small results!

Big thanks to all gurus for your kind help.

Due to size limitations (100kb) I could not attach the big picture of which this face is a part.

Solitear, how much time did you really spent to make it look so? I think yours is more realistic. thank you once again.

Thank you, Pranavy..... all of the versions submitted were excellent ... my version took about 5 minutes.... it was writing the first set of steps for you that took so long... that's why I felt bad when I 'lost' them and had to give you the short version.

I will re-type them and post them here, shortly.

Beth

Hi Pranavy…. Here are the steps…. Please don't take offense if I spell them out below your level of expertise….. I remember how grateful I was/am whenever someone, who had the time, would explain things in detail …. so I try to do the same. I will assume; however, that you're working on a copy and not the original photo… 

1. Go to Image > Mode > Lab (Lab is great for color work)

2. Ctrl+J to duplicate the background….. set blend mode to Screen…. Adjust opacity (don't worry about garish colors here just adjust the overall brightness)

3. Go Image > Adjustments > Hue/Saturation and move the middle slider to left to calm the colors down.

4. If you like what you see, flatten by going Layers > Flatten Image (most probably don't flatten as often as I but it's a habit of mine)

5. Now, loosely select the shadows on the face and, when you have the 'marching ants' click the Add Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the layers pallette and choose Curves.

6. Near the middle of the diagonal line, click and lift up to lighten those shadows (it helps if you can see your picture while you're doing this)…. Now go Filters > Blur > Gaussian blur to soften your selection lines……..Again, if you like what you see go Layers > Flatten Image to flatten.

7. At this point, some of the darker shadows were still too dark so I selected them and repeated steps 5 & 6.

8. Now, with your flattened picture, go Image > Mode > RGB

9. I clicked on the Create a New Layer icon on the bottom of the layers pallette and did some cloning to correct the jpg artifacts…. I adjusted the opacity and flattened….. you may not need to do this step on your larger file.

10. Again, with your flattened image, Ctrl+J to duplicate the Background and set the blend mode to Soft Light.

11. Go Filters > Other > Highpass and adjust the sharpness.

12. You can adjust the opacity of this layer then flatten.

13. The final thing I did, even after sharpening, was to lighten some areas on the face because it looked a little 'flat'. I selected the areas that would normally be highlights (the highest 'circle' on the cheeks, the slightly raised areas on the chin and forehead)…. When you've selected these and have the marching ants, do steps 5 - 6 one last time…

Hopefully, I've remembered everything.... if it isn't working then I may have omitted something.... let me know..... Also, the others here may have some really helpful insight and tricks that I'd like to know, too.

Beth

Thanks Beth for taking time to type each and every step for me. I started practicing these. Hope I will be able to retouch the photo to look like what you did, some time soon.

Wishing a great weekend to all...

You're so welcome..... I was glad to do it..... when I re-read my post, I sounded like I was complaining but I truly wasn't...... actually, I was mad at myself for being lazy.... I had typed part of the steps then left my computer just sitting for quite awhile ... when I came back to finish up, I thought I'd better copy what I'd written just in case it got lost..... but I didn't want to take the time and, sure enough, I lost it...... I won't do that again :)

I just know you'll do a great job...... if you get a chance, post your finished picture..... we'd love to see it!

Beth

I used hue/saturation layer, Brightness/Contrast layer + some cloning.

Here is what I achieved finally following Beth's method :)

Beth, I had some confusion with step 9. May be that resulted in not so good looking skin on the face? Please suggest me if you figure out what did go wrong in my retouching. Thanks.

http://i109.photobucket.com/albums/n68/pranavy/shadowface1.jpg

Hi pranavy...... you did a good job.... and, for you, step 9 probably wasn't necessary since you have the larger file and wouldn't be dealing with the jpeg artifacts on his face in the smaller, posted one we worked on.......

I left step 9 in just in case you might need to use the Clone tool (even in the future) and wanted to show that you clone on a new, blank layer with Sample All Layers checked..... that way, you can adjust the opacity of the cloning..... you may have already known this, though (about cloning)....

The thing that I see about the skin is the discoloration or some gray areas.... is that what you mean? Now, others may have a better way of correcting this but I would:

1. Click the Add New Layer icon at the bottom of Layers pallette

2. Choose a soft, round brush and set the brush settings to Overlay and opacity of maybe 10% - 24%

3. In Layers pallette, set blend mode of the blank layer to Color.

4. Now, Alt click to sample nearby colors and paint over those gray areas to add color.... when finished, adjust opacity of this layer...... This should take care of it.....

Let me know if this is it...... it's looking good!

Beth