Photo ruined by someone else's flash

[kbmum]

While on a recent trip to Disney World, I took some photos of a baby gorilla on one of the walking trails. The gorillas were behind plexiglass. The mom and baby came right down to the observation window, but only for 30 seconds or so. Someone standing next to me was taking pictures with her flash. I was heartbroken when I got home and realized that her flash bouncing off the glass ruined most of my photos.

Below is the best photo I have (no retouching). The flash illuminated all of the scratches and smudges on the window, and washed out the baby's leg (she's curled around her mother's forearm). Using the clone tool in GIMP 2.6, I was able to remove the scratches and the worst of the smudges, but the photo still doesn't look good. I had it printed anyway and noticed another problem. Since the skin of the baby's face is the same color as the fur, the image came out muddy and you can't see the baby's features.

Is it possible to improve the photo? If so, what techniques would be best?

http://i345.photobucket.com/albums/p...os/0701-02.jpg

[0lBaldy]

Originally Posted by kbmum

While on a recent trip to Disney World, I took some photos of a baby gorilla on one of the walking trails. The gorillas were behind plexiglass. The mom and baby came right down to the observation window, but only for 30 seconds or so. Someone standing next to me was taking pictures with her flash. I was heartbroken when I got home and realized that her flash bouncing off the glass ruined most of my photos.

Below is the best photo I have (no retouching). The flash illuminated all of the scratches and smudges on the window, and washed out the baby's leg (she's curled around her mother's forearm). Using the clone tool in GIMP 2.6, I was able to remove the scratches and the worst of the smudges, but the photo still doesn't look good. I had it printed anyway and noticed another problem. Since the skin of the baby's face is the same color as the fur, the image came out muddy and you can't see the baby's features.

Is it possible to improve the photo? If so, what techniques would be best?

http://i345.photobucket.com/albums/p...os/0701-02.jpg

Cindy, welcome to RetouchPRO Hope you enjoy your stay here and make lots of friends. Poke around, ask questions, take part in some of the discussions, challenges, etc., offer help, have fun!

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To make it look a bit better for printing I added some contrast adjustments then did some selective dust and scratch removal finishing with some healing brush applied (guess I could have just used the healing brush and clone tool though instead of the masked scratch and dust removal)

~~ Original ~~ attempted repair~~

[Tony W]

Did a little healing with spot healing brush and applied dust and scratch filter.
Converted to lab and applied curves to a and b. Finally USM to L channel. Image here is a little darker than my original in PS!

[chillin]

First shadow/highlight to bring out the face,
level & curves to correct the "flash" affected area,
Spot healing for the scratches, high pass to enhance dome details & final levels adjustments.

[kbmum]

Thank you all so much!