Hello All,
I have just completed the registration process and I am here requesting your help... I have this group dinner snapshot (with some folks from the company I work for) taken by the waiter. I still need to buy, install and educate myself on the use of Photoshop. But I would like to send the pic to the other attendees as soon as possible. Could you help me on improving the balance and (...very important) fixing the eye glare effect on the guy sitting way back in the dark? (not to mention that's me :))
I hope to learn more the techniques to improve the quality of digital pictures and of course be able to share them with this community....meanwhile
Many thanks for your help,

Freddy

Welcome, Freddy...

Not to worry. We were all newbies once. Some of us never got beyond newbie!

Here's feeble attempt. More (and better) versions to follow from other more skilled members, I'm sure.

Hope this gets the ball rolling.

~Danny~

Here's my attempt... Started with Auto Color (don't overlook the basics in your attempt to master the complexities!), then used Katrin Eismann's fill flash technique and some localised saturation tweaks and pixel-level edits (as there isn't much resolution to play with).

Hi Freddy,
Welcome to RP, here is my attempt at your photo.
Duplicated Background Layer
Used Curves to get all numbers matched
Then i used the Highlights/Shadows
Used USM to finish.
Hope this helps.
W. Rose (Wayne)

Hi Freddy

Like Wayne I used a Curves Adjustment Layer. #1 sampler: edge of table (brightest white). #2 sampler: dark area between 2 men on right. #3 sampler: middle of second table. Brought all RGB values of #1 to 243 (was 255 which is blown out). Brought all RGB values of #2 to 14. Brought all values of #3 to 149. Made a layer mask of back face (yours?) and lightened a bit. Tried to improve the whites and blacks of the eyes. Dodged (or was it burned?) left front man's face to darken.

Wayne. Good job. Couple of thoughts. Make sure your workflow is consistent with the standard: Highlights first, shadows second, midtones third. You sampled the middle of the first table which isn't the brightest highlite. Do your Image:Adjustments:Threshold. You sampled the man's shirt for midtones. You know the table cloth is white so sample the darker white (grey) of the middle table. The man's shirt may be white, but maybe not.

Cheers
Dave

Hi Dave,
Thanks again for the tips, i try to keep all things in order but sometimes i slip a bit. Using curves alot now that you showed me what to do with it.
Wayne

Hi,

I gave it a shot also... I isolated different areas and adjusted levels, hue/saturation and applied some dodge and burn.

I'm new also, this one was tricky for me. :)

Hi Freelancer,
Nice job

W. Rose (Wayne)

Hi again,
This is just a short message to thank you all (Danny, Leah, Wayne, Dave and Freelance) for the lighting fast :bigthmb: reply. You did a great job. I have sent out the pic to the SQM team. and hope to speed up my knowledge on this matter in order to share them with you. I guess that you all have the Adobe Photoshop as your basic tool. Am I right? or you have (or recommend) any other sofware?
Take care,

Freddy

I use Photoshop. If you don't want to spend the $$$ for that, the two other most common options (and yes, I know there are others out there, so no one yell at me) are Photoshop Elements and Paint Shop Pro. Each has their advantages and disadvantages so I'd suggest getting a trial version of each and seeing which suits your particular mindset :)

This is my first time to try and insert a picture. I hope it works.

Created new layer; added mask; used a black to white gradient on the mask; used curves layer as a cllipping path on gradient layer, which lightened the dark part of the photo. Adjusted hue/sat and color balance to edit out some of the cyan cast that showed on my version of the picture. Flattened image and applied unsharp mask of 1 pixel. Oh, and I used the brush setting at a very low opacity to enhance the mask and level out more of the faces.