Dark Photo - Missing Face

[Mr_Nath]

Hey there. This photo was taken of a good friend of mine. As you can see the flash didn't work and we can't make out his face (he is to the 'top left').

Is this task impossible, can we get his face to be visible.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Nath.

[Mig]

Pretty much impossible to make him look good, but if the F.B.I. were looking for him, he'd probably be busted.

MIg

[roger_ele]

Hi Nath, Welcome to RetouchPro.

This is the detail in the shadows. If you are just curious what you have in this image, this is it. If you would like more info just ask.

You may have more in your image but this image has been really compressed more than it needs to be, so it is hard to tell ...

Good luck, Roger

[Mr_Nath]

Wow, I can't believe it. I am really after the face a bit clearer, I am attaching a better quality image, maybe it will help. Thanks so much, thats amazing...
To save space and increase quality I cropped what I don't need......

[Flora]

Hi everybody,

Mr_Nath

I agree with what both, Mig and Roger say about this picture. I worked on your second picture (the bigger one)... so having a bit more details to work on, this is what I came up with ....

I'm posting my two versions: the first where I kept some of the original colour, and the B&W.

If it is, more or less what you are after, let me know and I'll post a description of how I got there ....

[Mig]

Not my picture, but far as I'm concerned it's about as good as it could get, Flora. Well done. I would really like to read a description of how you came up with this, as this type of image problem is of particular interest to me and I'm always looking for inventive ways. I looked at this for about 15 minutes and was unable to replicate what you have done and would like to do so, so if you have the time, please describe what you did. No need to be overly specific with the finer points, but whatever channels you used and basics in method.

Thanks, Mig

[Mr_Nath]

Thanks soo much. That is great. I would love to know how you did it???



Nath

[Flora]

Mig, Nath,

Thank you so much for your kind words!

Beside the description of the steps I took to get this result, I'm attaching a snapshot of all the Layers involved.

Mig, I usually start by examining the Channels and working on, or sometimes replacing, the worst one, but in this picture they were all very bad and trying to keep some of the original colour, I decided to try a 'global' correction
What I did is the following:

1) Used the Curves (snapshot attached on my next post) to lift the shadows and bring out the lights.

2) Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layers to further correct the colour.

After this, as you can see from the attachment, it was Layer upon Layer (Blending set to: Overlay, Soft Light, Color Dodge) to separately correct different parts of the picture.

To 'clear' his face from .jpg artefacts I created an empty layer and used the Blur Tool (fuzzy brush set to Color, Opacity 80%) after which I used the Healing Brush (sampling from a 'Pattern' I created for this, Tip from Katrin Eismann's new book - if you don't have it yet, I'll send you a description ) to further remove splotches and shadows.

Finally, to slightly sharpen the picture, I used the USM
Amount: 30
Radius: 20
Treshold: 4

P.S. I always 'play' with the Opacity of the Layers I add ...

[Flora]

....and here is the snapshot of the first Curves Adjustment Layer ...

[LQQKER]

Great results Flora.

Here's an interesting result I got using only two steps (less than a minute).
I made no attempt to smooth the image and I realize it is blocky due to Jpeg artifacts and resolution. I was mainly interested with what this particular filter was capable of, using it for a starting point. Thought I'd share this with you.

My steps were:
Applied digital Sho
Adjusted Hue and saturation.

[Saikat]

Exelent work Flora...

Thanks for sharing it

[Flora]

LQQKER

Thanks for your comment!
By the look of it 'digital Sho' is really worth a try!! Great result in a fraction of the time!!

Saikat

Thank you very much for your kind words!