Help needed on improving underexposed photo

[Cassidy]

I have been playing without success with this photo for nearly two years and now it seems even more important as our 14 year old puppy passed away this week. Anyone want to share some ideas on this (yes it is an awful photo and the light was a tragedy, but it really highlights how much of a family member he was)

[Flora]

Hi Cass,

so sorry about your puppy .... been there too...

Nothing fancy ... just corrected exposure, denoised ...(well as much as it could be still considered 'natural' ) and corrected the colours a bit ...

[irshgrlkc]

I guess it depends on what your hoping to achieve with this. To me it looks like it just needs a little lightening and de-noising. What a cute puppy he was, he looks like he was a total imp.

K

[Cassidy]

thanks Flora and K, you make it sound and look so simple but I have been chasing this for ages, looking for an acceptable result to frame. BTW, my puppy will always be my puppy like my children will always be my babies. In this pic he is approx 12yo BTW I am still open to ideas, both correctional and maybe a little artified

PS BTW love how easily you seemed to execute acceptable results, maybe I am too emotionally involved, I seem to produce rainbows

[Cameraken]

Hi Cass

Image > Adjust > Equalize
Neat Image
Selective Color to remove some yellow
Sharpened.
Layer set to overlay to brighten eyes and teeth.
Added catchlights to eyes.
Faded back in 15% of the original.

Finally after seeing Flora and K pictures I reduced the saturation a little.

Hope this helps. Sorry to hear about your Puppy.

Ken.

[Cassidy]

Gee guys, thanks so much, think my main sticking point with this photo is the fact he was a beautiful coffee x apricot colour and just cannot find the colourings and have to admit the lighting really added to the noise or lack thereof. Ken will give your setup a go, but without the desaturation I think. Despite my best efforts this photo has always printed very flat

[Daviskw]

Hi there

Thought i would try... I went for a little more high key

Butch

[Cameraken]

Hi Cass

Hee Hee.
I painted out the yellow cast.
If you have another picture you could sample colours and paint them onto this picture.

I think artifying this is a good idea. Maybe you should post it in the PhotoArt Forum.

Ken.

[Flora]

... a very simple solution...

Ken is right ... I'm going to move this Thread to the PhotoArt Forum ... I'm sure they'll come up with tons of beautiful ideas!!!

[lkroll]

Attached is what was my best try at enhancing the photo. Flora did a better version then mine, so I decided to do a rendering too. Too big to post, so click here for the oil rendering.

[DannyRaphael]

Nice work, everyone, on the highlights/midtones recovery and colorization.

============

Cassidy:

I moved your thread to this forum where it will attract "more eyeballs." It is a more appropriate one than "photo art" for this type of recovery.

If you intended it for "convert to art purposes," then by all means start a thread in the photo-art forum requesting such.

~Danny~

[Cassidy]

Many, many thanks guys, Flora that second one is much more representative of our little guy

[pavel123]

Cassidy:
My condolences on your loss. I know very well how you fill…

I went through the same routine: noise removal, shadow/highlight adjustment, color corrections. Tried a few stylizing filters and actions.
I attach a few of the stylizing attempts

P.S. Now that I’ve read through the posts I realized that you had in mind color restoration rather than stylizing….

[CJ Swartz]

He looks like he was a real sweetie!

Cloned some fur back into the burned-out highlights, de-noised, sharpened/aniso diffuse, selected fur and added color, added white to his eye...

[Cassidy]

Thanks guys for the inspiration and the kick I needed, using bits and pieces from each of your posts I have eventually come up with this. I am still open to further suggestions, but much happier with my outcome.