Photos of Parents What More Can Be Done?

[afaceinthecrowd]

I've been playing around with Photoshop CS and some photos of my parents. I thought I'd like to see what more can be done with them, since I'm really pretty new at this (just getting the hang of layers and trying to understand the idea of a mask). Since my parents hate posing for photos, I thought I'd give it a try with these ones and maybe even use them for passport/ID photos down the road, if they turn out well. So far I've tried to change the background color on Mom's photo and that's about it. For Dad's photo I tried a few things but I'm pretty stumped. I'd love to sharpen both images but my ability with the unsharp filter leaves much to be desired. I know that I could really learn so much if I had a chance to pick the minds of some of the gurus here.

[philbach]

Well I didn't do much. I used levels to increase the contrast and Neat Image to decrease the grain.

[Flora]

Hi,

afaceinthecrowd,

welcome to RetouchPRO!!!!

I had a go at your pictures... alas, for your dad's picture I couldn't do much either .... simply not enough details or definition to work on/enhance...

Phil,

Nice work! ... maybe you could ease off the shadows a bit as to not lose too many details..