bright faces...too much damage?

[valliebaby]

Hi, I am looking for some beginner Photoshop CS help... I am trying to learn on my own and the best way to do that is just play around with it! I have this photo that I really want to correct but the flash was too close to the faces and they are overexposed. How am I able to tell if the damage is too extensive to fix? If it is fixable, any ideas? Thanks!!!

[tom60634]

Pretty much the best I could accomplish, at least the overall look brightened up nicely.

[TommyO]

Welcome Valliebaby !

CS does not have all of the tools of CS3 or 4, but it still has everything you need.

You could try Image > Adjustments > Shadow/Highlight. It can recover some of the highlights on their face as well as enhance the overall tonality.

However, the brightest areas areas are "blown out", or basically have no detail left. You can add an empty layer above and do a combination of cloning and coloring to bring some of that back. Be careful not to make it look too smooth.

I'm sure you will receive lots of additional help as well.

[fantacmet]

I have an idea and I will try it and if it works well will post back. Anyone ever mess with the channels to crush the shadows and blow out the highlights, to achieve a look similar to the movie 300? How about reversing that process? combined with a little creative retouching with texture if needed it might work.

[MaximMorin]

If you have an other image of the same of the same event who isnt wash, you can take the texture of the skin of those image, place it here, destortion, color adjustment and curves to make it look natural (sorry fot the bad english)

[igot2pman]

In all honesty, the camera really messed up here... very disappointed...

I'll agree with the others... the picture is completely BLOWN OUT! It’s white. Normally, I can recover most of the blown out, but this was 255 (white). There are other ways to fix things like this. If it was just a small area, I would just patch/heal it out.

Step 1: color in the bad areas: sample good skin nearby and paint with low opacity (10-20%) soft brush on a new layer set to color blending mode.

Step 2: Lower the brightness and lower the contrast. I used -8,-22

Step 3: dodge and burn, to add back deffinition to the face.

Optional: Step 4: add in texture... or just some noise to the painted areas.

Hope this helps,
-Keven

[philbach]

I switched to lab mode and decreased the maximum luminosity to about 235.

I created a new layer using color blending mode and painted the blown out areas.

[igot2pman]

Philbach,

What method did you use to decrease the maximum luminosity to 235? I have done this with curves before... just wandering if there is a diffrent or better way.

-Keven

[philbach]

Well after switching to lab mode I used a curves adjustment layer and just slide the white slider down to 235.

[igot2pman]

Good choice to use it in the picture.

When you said that slide it down, it made me think of levels, the output levels slider at the bottom. I have never used it, but it basicly does the same thing.

-Keven

[philbach]

Right, this could have been done in levels too

[valliebaby]

awesome responses! this gives me a lot of ideas and a lot of new methods to play around with. thanks so much!!!