fix the color

[Chair]

hi guys! It is nice to be back. I hope everyone is okay and happy.
I have this picture and kinda having a hard time to fix and balance the color. The face of the lady is too bright. How can i fix this. I hope to hear from you.

Chair

[Flora]

Hi Chair!

In the example attached I only worked on the lady's face and the basic overall adjustments as to make it fit with the rest of the picture.

What I did here was:

1) Loosely selected the lady's head.

2) Ctrl+J (copied the selection to its own Layer), setting the blending to 'Multiply'.

3) Ctrl+Alt+~ (created a 'Luminosity Mask') and Ctrl+J (copied the selection to its own Layer), setting the blending to 'Multiply'.

From then on, I just 'played' with: 'Layer Mask', 'Curves', 'Hue&Saturation', 'Selective Color', Gaussian Blur', 'High Pass Filter' and 'Add Noise' until I was satisfied. Finally, I created an 'Overlay Layer' and with a soft black brush 5-10% Opacity, I enhanced eyes and mouth a bit.

[jeaniesa]

Hi Chair,

This was a tough one - I think mostly because the extreme JPEG compression got in the way every time I tried to darken the face, the JPEG compression really showed up.

That said, here's what I was able to come up with. It feels like I still need to do something else, but I can't figure out what it is right now.

I looked at each of the red, green and blue channels and found that the green and blue channels had the most detail, so I used the channel mixer on a selection of just the face to create a grayscale version with some detail. Then, I used that to create a contrast mask (inversed the B&W colors and set the blending mode to Overlay, then blurred a little.) I duplicated that layer to increase the effect even more.

Then I reduced the saturation a bit because the face looked too red. Created another contrast mask of just the face and set that layer blending mode to luminosity at a 10% opacity. (I did this in an attempt to further reduce the highlights.) Added a curve adjustment layer to increase the contrast just slightly.

The highlights still seemed to "white", so I added a layer in color blending mode and painted over the face with a skin color. Finished with an empty layer in overlay mode and painted over the shadow areas with black at a low opacity in an attempt to darken the shadows a little bit.

I don't know if this helps you at all, but it's my attempt.

Jeanie

[KevinBE]

Jeanie, you and Flora did a great job on that fix!. I tried several times and came up short of being able to do something with the womans face every attempt. Guess I have a ways to go yet with Photoshop correcting these types of problems. I guess the trick is getting some data in the areas that are blown out. I wasn't able to get around the JPEG compression problems either.

[jeaniesa]

Kevin,

Believe me, my first few attempts were pitiful. Case in point - my husband came in during one of my attempts and said, "Is she from Mars?" The JPEG compression had taken over the facial details!

Jeanie

[Flora]

Kevin, Jeanie,

I don't remember which was the hardest problem I had with this picture!....There were so many ..... I only know that I tried nearly every tool hoping to get a result that could pass for an acceptable human face .....

[themanda]

To get my version, I duped the layer then dropped the brightness about 75%. Painted just the woman's face back onto a blank layer. Using the hue/sat adjustment slider, I selected "colorize" and tweaked until I had a nice skin tone. Then I used the burn tool to define some better shadows at her hairline and under her chin. Flattened image. At this point her eyes and mouth looked a little washed out, so I dodged and burned a bit until I was happy.

[Chair]

Thank guys for the ideas and information. I think the hardest one is to adjust color. I took this picture from my digital camera and when I take photos, sometimes I get this result. I guess I must know how to take picture properly to avoid this. I will try to do your tips. Thanks for the help.

Chair

[KevinBE]

Hi Chair, I don't think the color balance is your fault. A lot of digital cameras, even the good ones, will miss the color balance. You were taking this shot with the flash and the subjects were under floresent lights. That can get tough to balance.

[roger_ele]

Hi Chair, I had trouble with this too ...

I didn't fool with the eyes, hair, or the mouth, just the skin tone

-Copied the green channel to a new layer (that new layer is now a black and white image). To the layer I did the following; Adjusted with curves: pulled the highlight down to about half way, used dodge and burn to bring back shape, Clone tool and blur tool to blend skin, then colorized, Curve adjustment to balance color, then masked everything but the skin.

-Overall levels and curve adjustments for the overall image.

Tried a bunch of different things before this but the contrast between the cheek and the blown our skin kept increasing to the grossest! That is why I ended up darkening the higlight in curves so I could bring back a shape without increasing contrast.

Roger

[roger_ele]

Chair, Just wanted to quickly mention that the reason this photo is so hard is not color balance but overexposure (camera let in too much light). You might find better results by telling the camera to darken flash photos by 1.0 (should be in your manual). If you can't find the setting just walk into a camera store, I am sure that they will help you.

Roger