how do I fix a too much contrast

[DGoan]

This is my first posting. I hope that somebody can help me.

This is a family photo that had way too much contrast, I tried levels. that helped alot but the bottom part still has alot of contrast. I noticed alot of jpg artifacts too any way to fix that?

Please tell me how to fix this.

David

[Kraellin]

dgoan, welcome to RP.

actually, you've got things turned around here a bit. the original had too LITTLE contrast. and you've fixed that part nicely. so, well done there.

the second half of your request is about the 'blown out whites'. unfortunately, this is not as easy to fix. in digital terms those areas are 255 red, 255 green, and 255 blue. so, there's no differences there to work with. it's just a white blob for the most part. you can lower the white blob to a more grey blob with something like levels or curves, but it's still going to be a blob.... no detail.

the way to fix this is with coloring or pasting of some sort. you can use a paint brush or airbrush to paint some detail back in or you can borrow parts of the image and paste into the white blob area to make some new detail or find another image, preferably from the same roll of film that has the areas that are blobs not as blobs and cut and paste those into the current image. for example, if you had another image with the woman wearing the same dress, you could make a copy of that part and copy it and then paste it over the damaged image to rebuild the dress. but there's just no way with filters to do it... you either paint it or paste it.

as for .jpg artifacts, these can be handled in a number of ways and will depend on the image and artifacting. i use paint shop pro and there is a filter called 'jpg artifact removal tool'. this tends to take artifacts and turn them into grain, thus reducing the effect. you can also try noise removal tools like polaroid's dust and scratches or psp's native 'digital camera noise removal' or the equivalent in photoshop. you can also try handling them as individual specks with a clone tool or something along those lines. that's more work but often does a better job.

[Frank Lopes]

Dgoan, welcome aboard!!!!

Here is an example of what it would look if you followed Kraellin's recommendations...

Originally Posted by DGoan

This is my first posting. I hope that somebody can help me.

This is a family photo that had way too much contrast, I tried levels. that helped alot but the bottom part still has alot of contrast. I noticed alot of jpg artifacts too any way to fix that?

Please tell me how to fix this.

David

[Kraellin]

nicely done, frank

[DGoan]

Thanks for that advice about finding another picture and cut and pasting. I found one. Does this look any better.


David

[Frank Lopes]

Looks terrific.... where did you get the sweater? :-)

Originally Posted by DGoan

Thanks for that advice about finding another picture and cut and pasting. I found one. Does this look any better.


David

[DGoan]

I found another picture almost the same take at the same time. so I took the sweater from there.

David

[Kraellin]

yup! there ya go. much better!

[Sweetlight]

Tons better although a bit cyan but nobody would ever know that. I swear to God that is Hillary Clinton on the left??

Chris