Wow! That's a lot of red

[Rogue]

I am new to Retouch Pro and look forward to being a member!
I've been working on this picture for a little while and have not been able to come up with a satisfactory solution. As you can see, there is a lot of red and very dark. I have played around with the curves, color balance, brightness/contrast etc. I can get rid of the red but it is still dark, the more I work on it the worse it seems to get. I think it is just one of those photos that has no hope. Perhaps you guys can help me out.

I am doing all my work on a PC with PS 7.

Thanks

[Duv]

Here's a quick fix balancing the numbers using Curves. More work is needed for skin tone and fine tuning image. I balanced the T shirt to about 240 and the dark anvil looking object upper left to about 33. Let me know if you have any questions.

Cheers
Dave

[Rogue]

Nice
I enjoy learning new ways of doing things with photoshop.
I will try it out.

Thanks again

[Legacy~Art]

Hello Rogue - I have psp.v.9 which uses scripts, i used the sunshine script, then took it into the gamma mode, and took some of the red out, then i sharpened it up.

[Flora]

I also used the Curves by setting the Grey Point on one of the fences on the right of the picture.

I, then, created a Selective Colors and a Level Adjustment Layers to furter correct colour and contrast.

[cspringer]

curves, selective color, levels, hue/sat....then did some colorizing to even out some areas. Used both Paint With Light actions at www.atncentral.com

[Gary Richardson]

Adjusted colour using levels and curves.
Copied to new layer, desaturate layer and Inverse, set blend mode to soft light, adjusted opacity.

[Duv]

Good job everyone. Makes mine look like rat soup. Flora, it interesting the different results between taking a Grey point reading and White and Black. It all really seems so subjective. And of course the sky should be blue since there appears to be shadows.
cspringer, great job. You really brought out a lot of detail, it's especially noticeable in the clock. If I could add just a teeny suggestion, I think there is still a bit too much red in the highlights and shadows. Also the shadows come close to solid black. I took the liberty of running a Curves on yours to even out the numbers and raised the black point a bit. Whether it's better or not I don't know but at least some of the numbers match.
Well, too much Blah, Blah. Now I've got to figure out what the heck I'm doin' wrong.

Cheers
Dave

[Rogue]

Thanks guys for helping me out.
I ended up going with Flora's suggestions....worked out well. First time I have ever use selective colors, pretty cool. The true test will be how the customer likes it.

Thanks agian.