Hey all.

I have about 7 years' casual experience with using Photoshop to touch up and restore pictures, but this one's just stumping me. My usual bag of tricks aren't working, so I thought I'd pose it to some experts to see if you have any suggestions for me.

I'm trying to edit the picture of the girl holding a very handsome guinea pig ('greened.jpg'). Kodak didn't do so well with their colors when the film was developed, and it'd be a hassle for me to go back to the person who took it in order to ask it get printed again.

Every time I try to use "adjust levels" or "adjust color" the entire thing gets far too washed out. Can anyone give me a start? For reference, I'm also attaching a picture which gives a better approximation of the girl's usual skin tone and hair color.

Thanks for any suggestions you might have!

A quick CB while pie eyed on an uncalibrated monitor. May look horrible to me in the daylight, but its a start for you.

I "ABSOLUTELY NEVER!!!" use AUTO anything in Photoshop. Never have, never will, despise it, think it should be an amendment to the constitution forbidding its use. Butttttttttttttt!!!!! For possible ease of use for you, not knowing your skill level I hit the auto color button and unbelievably on my monitor it was dead on.

Image, adjust, auto color.

Let me know.

c

Hi KPCS,
There are many ways to correct the cast. One of the most effective ways is to open the image in Photoshop's Camera RAW. Select the White Balance tool and just touch an area on the guinea pig's head that should be white. The entire cast is gone and the skin color look very natural - Sample below (with a quick dose of Red Eye Reduction Tool).

You can also open the image in Camera RAW and drag the Green Temperature slider toward Magenta till the green cast disappears.

You can also use Photoshops AutoColor or a Level / Curves adjustment layer resetting the white point. However, I find this latter method, while removing the green cast, tend to make the skin color magenta. The magenta can be removed with a selective color adj layer, but it is a little more effort,

Regards, Murray

Thanks so much for the tips so far. I've already tried auto as well as manual adjustment of layers and I wasn't getting a good effect, but I think that maybe the thing I was lacking was the idea to play with midtones and highlights separately. I'm going to play with those a bit.

I guess even once the color is "neutralized" or however one might call it, I'm still a bit disgruntled at the paleness of the photo.

Is there some Photoshop Magic Techniques that I can use to take the other photo of the girl's skin color and somehow enhance the skin tone in the washed out photo? Some sort of over-layer or color matching or something?

Thanks again!

Yes, the skin was a bit pale after removing the color cast. Many ways to do it but one quick method is to duplicate the background layer, then apply the Green Channel to the to the image and change the blend mode to Luminosity. The skin seemed a bit red so I applied a Selective Color adj layer selecting the Red channel and reducing Magenta while increasing the blacks a bit.
Regards, Murray

Used the Threshold to find the highlights and dark point. Used Levels to colour correct.


Joe

One of the most effective ways is to open the image in Photoshop's Camera RAW.
Regards, Murray

? How do you open a jpg with ACR?

There are several ways to do so. From Photoshop from the file menu, select Open As. When the dialog box comes up, select Camera Raw form the File Type pull down menu, the navigate to where your .jpg is stored and click open.

If you are using Adobe Bridge, you can do a File > Open With Camera Raw.

You can also set the Preferences in Photoshop and / or Bridge to always open jpg and tiff files in Camera Raw. This will save a lot of time if you use Camera Raw continually to do work on jpg files.

Regards, Murray

Not to hijack this thread, but the 1st method causes a "program error" dialog box. The 2nd method is not possible as the "open with Camera Raw" is greyed out.

weird

There are several ways to do so. From Photoshop from the file menu, select Open As. When the dialog box comes up, select Camera Raw form the File Type pull down menu, the navigate to where your .jpg is stored and click open.

If you are using Adobe Bridge, you can do a File > Open With Camera Raw.

You can also set the Preferences in Photoshop and / or Bridge to always open jpg and tiff files in Camera Raw. This will save a lot of time if you use Camera Raw continually to do work on jpg files.

Regards, Murray

What version of Photoshop are you using. This ability may only have been introduced in CS3.
Regards, Murray

<hijack>That would be it; CS2</hijack>

What version of Photoshop are you using. This ability may only have been introduced in CS3.
Regards, Murray

Wow, you guys are fantastic. Joeven really captured the tones I was looking for, so maybe I'll take his suggestions and be a bit more careful with using the highlights and dark spots. In fact, I can probably combine the techniques from the other posters to get a great photo out of this.

Thanks so much for all your help. I have some fun Photoshopping ahead of me. :)

Autolevels in RGB then 3 different brightness-contrast adjustments on the a Lab channel. History Brush. Photoshop 6, non-linear history enabled.

kpcs, sometimes auto can be a nice starting place. Instead of auto, click options in the curves or levels dialogue, there you will find three options as well as a check box. Click around and see what you get. This is done with the middle selection "enhance per channel contrast", with the option to "snap neutral midtones" checked.

Picman, not sure about cs2, cs3 is "edit" "preferances" "file handeling" "prefer camera raw for jpeg files".
Another option is to use Adobe's dng converter, make your jpegs .dng's, they will open in ACR.

my try
adjusted color with curves and then made some minor adjustments where some of the skin was still a little green with the paintbrush set to a color layer and opacity 26. Fixed red eye in both subjects and evened skin tone

>>>>>>>>> I hit the auto color button and unbelievably on my monitor it was dead on.

It never hurts to see what Photoshop thinks. Two clicks; 3 if it's no good.