Any hope for this picture?

[tracievh]

Girl on the middle; very bad shadow and skin just looks funky. I don't even know where to begin with this. Any help appreciated.

tvh

[unimatrix001]

give this out of shadows video a try might help you some.
http://blip.tv/file/251505/?skin=popup&file_type=mov

[TerryB]

1. Do a Levels adjustment on the entire image to obtain an acceptable overall appearance.

2. Make new layer [Ctl-Shift-N]. Soft Light Mode, check the Fill with 50% gray.

3. Paint over her face on that layer with a low-Opacity, soft, white brush to bring out the mid-tones and highlights. Paint with white on the other areas such as the other ladies' shirts and sky as you see fit while increasing/decreasing the opacity as needed.

4. Select just her on the original image layer and do another slight Levels adjustment as needed.

Here's a quick version with that technique:

[tracievh]

thanks. Great tut. I can use this on some other images for sure.
It helped, but now her skin just looks weird. I'm sure it has do with my technique, more or lack of it.

[lej]

Hi, I have an image that has bad shadowing due to backlighting of the two people behind the main subject, and I just tried both the techniques mentioned here. I have brought the back people out nicely except that they are monochrome. Has anyone come across this before? Would the only solution be to try and colourise them?

[DCobb]

This is my try. I duplicated the layer several times using screen. Then I duplicated the original and moved it just under by final lightened layer. Using a mask I painted the center gal in.

dc

[0lBaldy]

I like what TerryB did.. nice job!

A few shadow/highlight layers using the masks and a bit of curves

You will need more than 72 resolution (as shown in your EXIF Data) for prints though... 300 is a nice round number

[Cupcake]

Here is my try,
Light Painting!