Not sure how to fix this one

[Karyn]

My Mother-in-law would like me to fix this picture. I have tried a few things, but the darks are really dark and the lights, really light. The picture needs some "zing", it is dull. Can anyone give me some advice. I would also like to try and make this picture an oil painting after I fixed it - any advice would be great! Thanks Karyn

[amtb]

It is quite an easy correction if you use Photoshop CS (Image>adjustments>shadow/highlights). It can be done in earlier versions of PS and Photoshop Elements II but is more involved. I am sure in can be done in other programs as well, e.g PaintShop Pro but I'm not familiar with them.

If you tell us what editing program you are using and nobody can give you a simple fix I'll post the more complicated method.

JohnF

[vinniesworld]

Here's what I did:
1. Went by the Clipping Tutorial here
2. Adjusted levels on each channel.
3. Used shadow/highlights in Photoshop CS (Image>adjustments>shadow/highlights)
4. Burn the Sky with the burn tool - midtones - exposure 5%
5. Ran USM for contrast - 15/50
6. high pass filter set at 2.0 on duplicate layer - overlay

[Karyn]

Thanks for the quick replies. I am using photoshop 7 (well I am trying to use photoshop 7). A quick question, vinniesworld, you mentioned USM, what is that? Thanks Karyn

[Duv]

Hi Karyn.

USM stands for Unsharp Mask. I selected the sky and burned it in a bit. Reversed the selection and changed mode to LAB. With the Lightness channel selected I ran a Levels Adjustment. Using levels in LAB prevents color shifts. Keep your info palette active and check it as you are making your levels adjustment. The white house in the distance should be around 230 each for R, B and G. The shadows to the left Ideally should be around 30 but I found I was losing too much contrast so I settled on round 16 for the deepest shadows. Hope this helps.

Cheers
Dave

[Janet Petty]

My humble effort did not include doing anything with the sky. The rest was accomplished by using the methods posted on the screen shot.

I hope this helps. Duv did a great job using a different method. I'm only posting this to offer you yet another way of doing much the same thing.

Janet

[cspringer]

Paint With Light actions found at www.atncentral.com

[amtb]

You actually have two problems in the photo - the sky is too light and the shadows too dark. This is what often happens on dull days. Photoshop CS can fix these with its shadows/highlights command but you can do it in PS7. Here's how.

1 Duplicate the background layer and keep it active.

2 Go to Hue and Saturation (ctrl+u is the short cut) and desaturate ithis layer completely so it is just a grey scale image.

3 Invert the layer (ctrl+i) so it is a negative black-and-white image.

4 Go to (Filter>blur>Gaussian blur) and set a radius between about 6-10. (It has to be a good blur, usually between 10 and 20 and sometimes more but you photo seems to work quite well at 9. It does need to be a heftier blur than you might think.

5 Change the blending mode of the inverted, blurred layer to overlay and you will see that not only are the shadows lighter but detail is now visible in the sky.

There is a bit more tidying up to do but it should be easier having got the tonal range in to something more manageable. Just to get a bit more detail I duplicated the blurred layer and changed the blending mode from overlay to soft light, but that is only a small extra. I stopped at that point and attach the result.

Hope that helps.

JohnF

[philbach]

Since this is going to be a source for a painting, Perhaps cropping and removing undesirable elements might help. The road on the left and the truck I felt were undesirable. I cropped this one so that the road in the forground exits at the bottom left side of the picture. So the issue in my mind is composition.

[Karyn]

Thanks for all the advice. Phil, you are right, the composition of the picture is so much better without the road and the truck. I hadn't even thought about that. cspringer, thank you for pointing me to the painting with light action, Wow!. John, I am excited about trying your instructions. Duv, Unsharp Mask I should have known. I would never have thought of using LAB. I better get to work, thanks for working with me.
Karyn