Too Dark, Too Red

[saschabates]

Hi, I'm pretty new to photo editing and I'm really struggling with some recent pictures that I hoped would clean up nicer than they have. I think a big part of it is my hair--it messes with the other reds in the pictures. Even with the flash, both pictures are too dark, with too much red and all my efforts to lighten them end giving them that awful white, too light look, if you know what I mean. I'm sure there's a technical term for it that I don't know.

So I was hoping you could look at them and give me either some advice or maybe a hand. They are the originals right out of the camera.

thanks so much,
Sascha

[saschabates]

And after seeing my photos posted here, I'm wondering if maybe there's something wrong with the way photoshop is showing me stuff, because that's NOT the way the look when I'm trying to edit. I could be more clueless than I thought. Is that a possiblity?

[FrannyMae]

Sascha, while I am absolutely a dunce when it comes to color management, I have a suggestion on where to start.

Your picture has an embedded color profile of sRGB. As I understand it, the color profile just tells your program what to do with the digital color information (of course there is a good chance I'm wrong!) But at any rate, you need to make sure the color profile of your picture and the WORKING SPACE (which is how your program treats the color information) of your program match. So....

Go to EDIT>COLOR SETTINGS and check the settings for WORKING SPACES. While there is a lot of debate about what is best, the important thing at this stage (in my opinion) is just to make it match the pictures you are opening in the program. So you want sRGB to be your working space.

I'm afraid that is as far as I can take you with this problem. I'm pretty sure some of the kind gurus around here will have more advice. Take a look and see what your working space is, and then take it from there! Good luck!

[saschabates]

Thanks for the tip. I checked and Adobe defaulted to sRGB. When I open the picture in ImageReady, it looks like the posted web pictures as well. I'm not entirely sure what that means.

I can say though, that, while my hair is red, it's not THAT red. The Elvis picture makes it way more vibrant than in real life. Maybe that's a good thing

While we're on the topic, can anyone tell me if there's a way or an action to adjust the shine? I seem to be suffering from a lot of that as well.

As alway, any and all help is appreciated.

[kiska]

sas...., welcome!

I worked on the hair and shine. Attached is the layers palette. If you don't understand, holler.
BTW, when I save for the web, my images go real red, even when I 'convert to profile' sRGB.
Oh, the 'option/click nearby color', you use the brush tool for this

kiska

[Flora]

Hi everybody,

saschabates,

Welcome to RP!

For the 'matching colours' problem (monitor, web, printing...), FrannyMae pointed you in the right direction ... To know more about it (and, like in my case, to get even more confused about it ), you should make a search for:

Monitor Calibration
Color Management
Color Profile

As for your pictures, after lightening the up a bit with Image>Adjustment>Shadows&Higlights (Photoshop CS only), I did what Kiska did to tone down the reds.

I lightly blurred and desaturated the backgrounds to make you 'pop' out more.

Hope this helps...

[saschabates]

Wow, that's so cool! I only have Photoshop 7 so I don't have the shadow/highlight option. I wish I did.

I'm afraid I don't quite understand the layering steps taken in the earlier posts. I was able to duplicate background and layer1 layers, but wasn't sure what to do with them or how they differentiated from each other?

[kiska]

sas...., it's kiska again.

1. duplicate background, a habit of mine. Saves an untouched 'before' for you.
2. new layer, at the bottom of layers' palette, looks like a 'dog-eared' piece of paper.
3. with brush tool, on this new layer,option/ click some good skin near shine. Paint over the shine with this color ON the new layer. Go to top of palette and lower the opacity of the new layer to where you like it.
4. hue/saturation layer, bottom of palette, looks like a split circle, then a drop down, click hue/saturation.
5. in hue/sat dialogue box, drag the saturation slider to the left, to 'dull' the red. go to top of this box where it says Edit: Master. Open it, click 'red',and lower that saturation.Click ok.
6. Make sure the 2 color squares at bottom of tool box are set to default, hit 'D' key. Black should be on top. Go to top menu, Edit>Fill. Choose foerground color( it should be black). This masks(covers up) ALL the hue/sat adjustments you just did.Click black mask to make sure it's 'active'(it will have a border around it). With a soft brush, set to white, paint on image over hair. This will let the hue/sat adjustment come thru on hair ONLY. You can then adjust the opacity(top of palette) to your liking.

Hope this has not totally confused you

kiska

[saschabates]

That was great Kiska. I was able to get it all. The hair was challenging, so I mostly left it alone but the shine technique worked great.

[Angie B]

Thanks Kiska for such a detailed explanation. I also didn't understand but once I followed your detailed info it was a breeze!

[TokenArt]

well I am totally new to photo restoration pretty much so please don't be offended by my attempt..I thought it looked good but then again.. I am way to used to digital art...so without delay here is my attempt

TokenArt

[TokenArt]

well here is my attempt at the other picture..hope it goes well

TokenArt