Photo Restoration - - Removing shadows

PJM · #1 01-18-2006, 08:36 PM

Hi
I have been learning CS2 from books since August last year. Before this I had never done anything to any photo before. I am trying to put together a weddingportrait for my daughter whose photos have been lost from picures family took at the wedding. I have just about done as good as I can do, the only problem is that across her dress there is a dark shadow that spoils everything. I have tried all I can find to remove this shadow and am wondering if anyone out there knows of a way to remove shadows from a photo. I would appreciate any help I could get
Cheers
PJM

mistermonday · #2 01-18-2006, 09:12 PM

PJM, welcome to RP. Shadows can be easy or difficult to remove depending on the colors and lighting adjacent to them. It would be more helpful if you posted a copy of your photo. You can attached a version which is a max of 100KB to your posting here or you can post a msg with a link to your image on some external site. Regards, Murray

PJM · #3 01-20-2006, 06:06 PM

Hi Mistermonday
I have attached a copy of my photo as suggested. I have done the best I can with my limited knowledge. The bride(my daughter) came off one photo the groom from another and although I have tried I cannot remove the shadows from the brides face and dress and its looks wrong having them there. I dont have any better photos of her to choose from - as I said her photos are gone and we cant get replacements.

mistermonday · #4 01-20-2006, 10:03 PM

PJ, the image you uploaded is very tiny (~1.5" sq) and low resolution. It is hard to see any detail let alone tweak. I would recommend that you post a higher resolution version somewhere and place the link to it back in this thread. If you need a host, you can upload it for free at http://www.pixentral.com Regards, Murray

Gary Richardson · #5 01-21-2006, 01:52 AM

As Murray says, the image is too small to do much with, but I've done a really quick job so you can see roughly what is possible.

Cassidy · #6 01-21-2006, 02:13 AM

Yes the image is way too small, however I tried to incrementally enlarge it a little and using a black mask painted in the areas I wanted screened.

Flora · #7 01-21-2006, 03:21 AM

Hi everybody,

PJM,

Welcome to RP!

Agreed with everybody else about size and resolution of your posted picture ... You could follow the second link under my signature for detailed help on the topic ...

.... and, along with any restorations you might have done, it would be a great help for us to attach the original scanning too ...

That said, as you have seen already, a lot can be done to restore your picture ... I worked on your daughter's face and shadows of the dress only ... (PS CS2)

lkroll · #8 01-21-2006, 04:59 AM

Not going to tell you how unless you post a bigger piece for use to enhance. I will say that I did this in GIMP, but all the steps can be done in PS (assuming you have Flaming Pear's Tachyon filter).

Sorry that I missed masking the fellows hand and the flowers; flowers turned a little pink; hey, I like the pink flowers anyway.

PJM · #9 01-22-2006, 06:24 PM

Thankyou so much all the people who replied to me. I have tried again to upload a better quality picture hopes it works. It amazes me what you have done already when my picture was not up to any quality. In New Zealand where I live I have been unable to get much help about htis problem - you guys are great

mistermonday · #10 01-22-2006, 07:42 PM

Hi PJM, this image is definitely better. The shadows are very underexposed so I found that the normal use of the PS Highlight/Shadow tool adjustment diid not work very well. I selected the Luminosity (Ctrl+Alt+~) and selected the reverse and copied it to its own layer. I then changed the blend mode to Screen. This cause a hard edge along the left side of the veil and the gentlemans head. A small touch up with the Blur brush fixed that. There seem to be a magenta cast across parts of the image so a curve move took care of that. The Gentleman's hand has a magenta cast and was quite different from his face so a loose selection around it and a Hue / Sauration quickly fixed it. Hope this points you in the right direction.
Regards, Murray

Cassidy · #11 01-22-2006, 11:14 PM

As per the smaller image, but this time I tackled the dress shadows predominately using sampled colour from surrounding area and painting out shadows with luminosity. The Neckline was cloned and a copy of the right side of the dress flipped horizontally to complete the neckline with better clarity.

Gary Richardson · #12 01-23-2006, 01:44 AM

Very quick job this, could be refined a little to bring out some detail, but sorry I don't have time available at the moment.

Duplicated image, desaturated it, inverted, then set layer blend mode to soft light. Reduced layer opacity, then masked everything but the bride.

Finally applied Neat Image to reduce noise.

Flora · #13 01-23-2006, 04:23 AM

Great job everybody!

PJM,

thank you for posting a larger size picture!!! That surely made a difference!!

I just worked on the bride's face and, partially on her decollete ....

One question .... was the groom or the groom's shoulders and head added to the photo? I'm asking because in my opinion, he looks much sharper than the bride .... the difference in colours and lighting makes me think that they were photographed separately and in different spots (no strong shadows but a nicely diffused light on his face and, while on his hand the light source seems to be coming from the same side as for the bride - my upper left side of the picture - on his face it appears to be coming from my right side of the picture... ) .... The bride's head veil on the groom side shows a hard edge and it ends a bit unnaturally on his shoulder ... (Attachment 2)

Gary Richardson · #14 01-23-2006, 06:32 AM

Good catch on the neckline Flora, missed that entirely.

Agree with you about the groom, definitely looks like a cut'n'shunt job.

PJM · #15 01-24-2006, 01:32 PM

Hi all
yes the groom was made up from a couple of photos. As I explained my daughters wedding photos were lost and I am making up a photo so she can have a least one near decent memory. Its very sad when precious memories like her are lost and cannot be replaced - that is why I appreciate what you have done to help me. There are one or 2 other photos I have obtained from others who were at the wedding and they have shadow problems too so getting tips on how to deal with shadows is really appreciated and hopefully I will be able to do someting with these other photos because of it. Thankyou so much - a novice who is trying to learn from books really thanks you