Image Help - - Help Child Portrait on White Background Tuning

W3Images · #1 09-10-2006, 07:36 PM

Hi Everyone!

I just took some photos of a young 4 year old using my white backdrop for the first time. I apparently did not get my lighting setup correctly. It seems to be a bit grey. Also, I noticed some dust particles showing up in the pictures.

My question is - How can I enhance these pictures to make it appear that the lighting was correct, i.e. the background appears to be white?

I have PhotoShop 7.0 and can get around fairly good, but I am always learning!!!

Any and all help would be appreciated.

The attached image is straight from the camera.

Thanks,

Wendy Wyffels-Wilson

DWThomp · #2 09-10-2006, 08:06 PM

You can easily adjust the white point with the white eye dropper either in a levels or curves adjustment layer. Click the eyedropper and then click where white should be. As far as the small dust spots, they can easily be cloned out. You need to either clean your lens or sensor. Hope this helps.

Littlecoo · #3 09-10-2006, 08:51 PM

A Levels adjustment layer (menu: LAYER=>NEW ADJUSTMENT LAYER=>LEVELS)
and some sharpening to bring out the colours more(I used unsharp mask...not sure of PS7 features/tools etc) is most all I did here.

mistermonday · #4 09-10-2006, 08:55 PM

Wendy, there are a number of ways to accomplish your goal. The girl also needs some contrast and brightening. So the method I suggest is to add a curves adjustment layer and pull the highlight slider to the right until the background turns white. This will over brighten the girl in certain area. So now with the layer mask on the Curve Adjust Layer active (by default) choose a soft black brush with a low opacity (10%) and paint over the areas which are too bright to gradually darken them.
Regards, Murray

Daela · #5 09-10-2006, 11:43 PM

I had a go at this also and used paint Shop Pro 9 but only needed to click on the enhance photo, and then on the one step photo fix, I then took the clone brush and took out the dark spots i found and then used the smudge brush, after first zooming in on the spots.
I am new here and havent figured out yet how to add the thumbnails to the forum so will for now just mention what i did the other replies are fantastic really great help for me as well.
Thanks for letting me join this great forum.

Gary Richardson · #6 09-11-2006, 03:01 AM

Like most of the others here, I just applied a levels adj layer, and adjusted the bottom RH corner to be white. (I adjusted each channel seperately).

As an alternative, if you want a pure white BG, try extracting the girl and putting her on an artificial white BG. The contrast between her and the original BG is good enough to make this quite a simple task.

leanan`si · #7 09-11-2006, 04:04 AM

Bellow the box where you type your message, there's an option to 'Attach Files' 'Manage Attachments'. This allows you to upload an image under 100k

leanan

Flora · #8 09-11-2006, 07:06 AM

Hi,

Wendy,

welcome to RP!!

I also used the Levels to brighten the background ... leaving only a hint of shadow for reality ...

I increased contrast and saturation a bit ...

I brightened up the little girl's right eye and 'opened' it a bit more using the Smudge Tool ..

Lightly sharpened ...

Daela,

welcome to RP to you too!!

Simply follow the first two links under my signature for detailed help on attaching files to your posts and/or Threads and for resizing images for RP!!

Hope this helps...

Dm_Cher · #9 09-12-2006, 05:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by W3Images

Hi Everyone!

I just took some photos of a young 4 year old using my white backdrop for the first time. I apparently did not get my lighting setup correctly. It seems to be a bit grey. Also, I noticed some dust particles showing up in the pictures.

My question is - How can I enhance these pictures to make it appear that the lighting was correct, i.e. the background appears to be white?

I have PhotoShop 7.0 and can get around fairly good, but I am always learning!!!

Any and all help would be appreciated.

The attached image is straight from the camera.

Thanks,

Wendy Wyffels-Wilson

Try to cut (select) your kid and replace background.

W3Images · #10 09-12-2006, 05:41 PM

Thanks everyone for your wonderful advice!! I am still learning all the ins and outs of Photoshop. This is a great place to get advice and guidance!!

Thanks,

Wendy

i.ilievski · #11 09-12-2006, 06:40 PM

Here is my attempt... level adjustments, and small increment of saturation level...

cricket1961 · #12 09-12-2006, 07:45 PM

Here is my attempt also. Good Luck!!
Used a gradient map to adjust oa brightness to @ko background and keep your lighting and then a slight midtone high contrast curve.
Added a little sharpening using the custom filter afterwards.

Chris

Squggle · #13 09-16-2006, 09:15 PM

I used a select color selection on the background and used the alpha channel as a mask for a curves, I used the white dropper to select the background and then pushed the midtones up as well, just to make sure.

There was a little mask bleed on the foot so I just painted that in.

After I'd done that, I got a bit bored

Syd · #14 09-17-2006, 08:56 AM

Convert it to Lab and then you can brighten up the image by introducing an "S" into the Lightness curve. This won't throw your colors out. I also upped the saturation a bit while in Lab and then converted it back to RGB. Here I used the magic wand to select the background (it's really easy because it is practically all one color), opened an Adjustment Curves Layer and brightened the background. And that was it. The highlights are a little on the overexposed side but I think it works with this photograph.

Syd