Soccer Photo - Can It Be Saved??

[BigAl96]

Hi All!

I just completed shooting a season's worth of photos of my son playing soccer. As "luck" would have it, one of my favorite photos (which I would like to print @ 8x10) has some major problems - blown out highlights. I am a novice PSE2 user and have attempted a fix, however I'm sure the experts on this forum can do a much better job as I do not trust my skills.

I have attached the "Before & After" shots. I'm not thrilled with my efforts: blown out arm looks flat, hot spots/shine on faces ... its a mess. I would really appreciate if you all could lend a hand at presenting this image properly.

The original image and file size can be found at http://mirofoto.smugmug.com/gallery/...11114546/Large

Thank you very much for your efforts!

Alex

[camexpatu]

Hi. Thats a great photo.!

I usually find that when the areas become that blown out the detail is lost for ever. There are a few things you can do though. Select the areas and bring the brightness and contrast down slightly. You can also find similar areas with detail and lightly clone them in with a soft brush at a low opacity.

[Leah]

Here's a quick attempt. The main thing was following byRo's Unclipping Tutorial as a first step (I think you can do all of those steps in PSE, although I use Photoshop) -- then using Curves on the skin areas and some dodging/burning, probably in much the same way that you did. You could make the end result much better if you spent more time on it than I did.

Also, if you have a lot of other pictures from the same event then you may be able to get some better skin texture into the arm (in particular) by cloning from other images of your son.

[camexpatu]

Hi a quick attempt. Cant really do much to the soccer ball withough finding some similar panels off another photo or a whole new ball. I curved it down as much as I could.

[BigAl96]

Thank you Camexpatu and Leah for your help ... your work is amazing considering the little amount of time you spent!

Leah - Elements does not have Curves, so its a bit of a roadblock. I guess I could check a plugin called "Hidden Powers Of Elements" - supposedly it enables a Curves function in Elements.

Camexpatu - that's the thing with shooting sports, getting a good action shot is half the battle, you still must deal with various lighting conditions, crowds, etc. No such thing as bracketing

[Leah]

Al, Curves isn't really necessary -- it was just what I used. You could get much the same result using Levels and playing with the mid-point slider. So long as you have all the tools to follow byRo's tutorial you should do OK.

[Flora]

Hi BigAl96,

Welcome to RP!

Great shot!!!

Working with Photoshop CS, for this picture, I tried a different approach which, I think, can be done with any Image elaboration software which offers the possibility of Selections and Layers:

• Loosely selected the blown out areas for one of the boys.
• With the selection still active, I created a new empty Layer (Blending=Multiply).
• With the Color Picker, I chose the skin colour close to the blown out area.
• I filled the selection on the empty layer with the picked colour.
• I duplicated the 'Color' Layer twice more changing the blending to Color first, then Soft Light.
• Adjusted each 'created' Layer's Opacity until happy with the result.
• Carefully erased (with or without Layer Mask) any Colour 'spillage'.
• Repeated the procedure on the second boy.
• Used Levels (Curves or whatever enhancement Tool available) to increase the contrast a bit.
• Lightly sharpened the image.

[BigAl96]

Graci Flora!

Thanks for taking the time with my picture ... I will re-attempt in Elements with your detailed instructions ... sounds complicated, but will make a great tutorial.

Oh, for the record - my boy is the kid with the green jersey, applyng the slide tackle

[venivedi]

Wow, great shot BigAl96. It is a commemorative picture.
And Leah, I really like your work.

[kschulz]

Nice work, Flora! I really like your approach - simple and effective.

- Kurt

[Flora]

BigAl96,

Thanks so much for your feedback ....

P.S. Great tackle!!!!!!

Kurt,

Thank you so much for your great comment!

[MBChamberlain]

This is the result of an idea I had...

I used the motion blur filter to draw a texture across the skin at the right angle and used curves to give it depth. Then I mask to the area I want, convert to greyscale, blend with darken and place a color fill layer (color blend mode) above it sampled from the kid's skin and bled a little where the edges are.

I used three diferent directions and two fill layers for the two kids, a little tweeking here and there and some selective coloring for the remainder of the image.

It turned out OK, but i'd really like to know what you all think. What do you think of this method? How does it look?

Thanks all,

Michael

[Flora]

Originally Posted by MBChamberlain

This is the result of an idea I had...
It turned out OK, but i'd really like to know what you all think. What do you think of this method? How does it look?

Thanks all,

Michael

Hi Michael,

For what I can see, It looks very, very good and realistic!!!
You managed to correct the blown out areas keeping a 3 dimensional feeling .... which is the first one to suffer when toning down and 'filling' these particular spots!!!!
I'm going to try your method and let you know ....

Just one small thing, just above the kid's right knee, the new colour bled a bit on the grass....

[MBChamberlain]

Originally Posted by Flora

Just one small thing, just above the kid's right knee, the new colour bled a bit on the grass....

Oops, I guess that is what I get for trying to do it in 25 minutes...thanks for the input, just let me say, I've read you posts and looked at your work throuout this forum and I think your stuff is totally awesome.

I downloaded the larger version of this image and used the motion blur method on it. What do you think?

Thanks again,

Michael

[Duv]

With blown out highlights so prevalent, especially with digital, this demands a tutorial.

Dave