Bringing detail out of the darkness

[AtlanaAnna]

I'm posting a picture in it's original form and then another shot of a restoration. In the restoration, the details of the board slats to a house are brought out. How is this done? I've played around the Levels and Curves trying to duplicate this results but haven't been successful.

Thank you,
Sylvia Morris
sylviamorris@nc.rr.com

[maureeno]

It looks like Levels, dodging and focus/sharpen applied to the boarded selection.

Maureen

[philbach]

One way is to select the background and lighten by using a screen blending mode or levels/curves.

What I did in this case was to use Image/Adjustments/Shadow Highlights in photoshop CS2. After this correction I would use the spot healing brush tool to clean up the white spots in the background

[Kraellin]

like philbach, i believe you have to treat this one as if it were two different pictures and separate out the background and foreground with masking. you then treat the masked area and invert and treat the other.

Craig

[Cinthia]

Another method, courtesy of Katrin Eismann, is to paint with a Curves adjustment layer (page 72,73 of her second edition Photoshop Restoration & Retouching).

1. always make a duplicate layer
2. add a curves layer and set it to "Screen."
3. make the curves layer the active layer and select a soft round brush. Set the brush color to white @ 3 to 10 percent opacity, and paint the areas to be lightened. The only area to be affected will be where you have painted.

Cinthia