Help removing brown line by her legs

[spell]

Hi im kinda new with photoshop cs3, im having trouble making her legs the proper color any ideas how i can fix this. thanks

[GrahamP]

Hi Spell,

There's a lot of damage at the bottom of your image. From about the girl's shins downwards everything is lost. No hope of recovering anything from there. From just below the girl's knees there is extensive damage. Some detail could be recovered but it would probably be a reconstruction with airbrush and painting tools rather than restoration. Certainly beyond my skill level and, if you are a beginner with Photoshop, I suspect it would be an extremely difficult challenge for you. Having seen the incredible work of many posters on this forum I won't be that surprised if the next day or two sees several perfectly reconstructed examples being posted though.

However for mere mortals the easiest solution is probably to head for the crop tool. Not only do you solve the problem of the damage to the legs but you can also remove a lot of the clutter in the background. I cropped with the same aspect ratio, used a duplicate layer set to 'screen' blend mode and masked out with a gradient to lighten up the lowest part of the cropped image. Selected the background and corrected the color cast while also desaturating by -30%. That helps to separate the girl from the background.

Graham.

[Dave.Cox]

I agree with Graham. The bottom of the photo is pretty rough, and there isn't any important information there. The background is also a bit distracting. I might do something like this with this photo.

[TommyO]

Spell - after quickly examining the area in dark brown (right below the knee) it can be restored enough for what I think you are looking for... a reasonable photo that doesn't look botched and includes her hands and some lower leg. The area in white is basically gone. Give me a few days and I will post something for you to look at (fairly busy this weekend). Being that your attachment is somewhat low resolution, that's what you will get in return. So, it will be fine for a 4x6 or so, but not for enlarging. See you soon !

[TommyO]

Spell - you can take a look at this one. Sorry I did not have more time to dedicate to it. However, it should suffice for a smaller photo. There was not enough detail left in the brown area to get a sharp image down there. So, much of that area will look soft. But, not many people will be able to tell. It will just look like it was in a shadow or a bit out of focus. Hope this was helpful. I'm sure someone else could do more, or better.

[Balky]

Hi

Here is my attempt...

Used some leveling, doging & Highlighting the selected brown area, used some painting etc.

[Kraellin]

hi spell and welcome to RP.

nothing you can do about the white band at the bottom. that's gone.

the dark area you mention can probably be handled with a gradient mask across the area and then some lightening and maybe a hue/sat treatment.

[creeduk]

If you do opt to go with a repaired over a cropped I would be tempted to heavily vignette the shot to add some cover to the repaired area and taking focus away from a no essential part of the shot.