Can you save this photo?

[Amy2004]

Hi everybody,

I just signed up today. I have been playing with Photoshop for a few months and have much to learn.

I have a photo I took inside without flash. It turned out way too dark and too noisy. Is there any way to fix it?

It'll be much appreciated.

[Janet Petty]

I'm sure there are others out there who are way better at this than I am. I found that to restore the detail, it did end up looking quite grainy. The blue channel was almost totally destroyed. I tried a few tricks including replacing the blue channel. This was the result. However, I only spent about 15 minutes on it. Let's see what the rest can do. Come on, show me how it is done.

Janet

[W. Rose]

Hi Amy,
I looked at your web site and it is very nice.
I took a go at your photo. I'm using Photoshop CS and not sure what version your using, but hopefully this will help.
1. Duplicated Background Layer
2. Then i used Shadow/Highlights
3. Levels
4. Then i used Grain Surgery (I'm sure you could also use Neat Image also)
5. I then used Curves
Hope this helps, if you need more setting let me know.
Also, nice job Janet.
Wayne

[Duv]

All I did was adjust the RGB values, run Neat Image at my Nikon D100 ISO 1600 setting then some High Pass sharpening.

Cheers
Dave

[Amy2004]

Thanks for the replies so far.

The first time I tried to fix this photo all I did was do auto levels but that turned out way too grainy.

I am but a beginner in this fascinating world of the digital darkroom.

I do like what's been done so far. But is there a way to get rid of the grainyness and perhaps sharpen the subject?

[painperdu]

Histogram adjustment and smooth out a bit.

[1STLITE]

Just Shadow/Highlight and Neat Image. No other work at this point.

Dawn

[Gary Richardson]

Colour corrected and adjusted brightness using levels. Took out noise using noise filter, created edge mask and sharpened using USM.

[Flora]

Hi Amy2004,

Welcome to RP!

Here is what I did with your picture:

Brightness:

• Used the Levels to correct the Brightness.

Noise

• Run Neat image (Medium settings) on the Blue Channel as it was the most damaged.
• Run Neat Image (Softer setting) on the whole image.
• As most of the noise was in the darker parts of the image, I created a shadows Mask:
  Ctrl+Alt+~ (Luminosity Mask),
  Ctrl+I (inverted it so only the shadows were selected),
  Ctrl+J (copied the shadow Mask on its own Layer)
  and run Neat Image again on the Shadow Mask.

Colour & Sharpness

• Used Selective Colors to balance the colours in the picture and remove the yellow cast on the lady's skin.
• Loosely selected the lady, Ctrl+J copied the selection on its own Layer and created a Layer Mask.
• Applied a very light Gaussian Blur (Radius=0.3) on it.
• Sharpened it wit USM.
• Refined the Layer Mask around the Lady.

[Amy2004]

That was awesome!

Thanks everybody for helping.

This is a great forum. I've reading this forum off and on for a while and finally decided to join. I'm looking forward to playing around with more pictures and also learning more about Photoshop.

It seems that everyone has Neat Image. Where can I get a copy of that?

[Janet Petty]

The demo version is a free download on the internet. Bear in mind it doesn't have all of the capabilities; but does a decent job on most pics. Just type in Neat Image in your search bar and it will come up.

[Flora]

The free Demo Version of Neat Image can be downloaded here.