Photo Retouching - - Help correcting underexposed photo

rjgonzalez · #1 06-12-2006, 03:25 PM

Is there any hope for restoring this photo? I tried duplicating the layer and changing the Blend Mode to Screen in order to lighten up the picture and bring out some details, but I am not sure what to do next. I have played around with adjustment layers but end up making the picture look worse. Any suggestions on how to improve this photo?

philbach · #2 06-12-2006, 03:39 PM

I moved it over to lab and corrected some of the magenta and attempted to lighten it up some. Back to RGB. Neat Image. Image Adjustment Shadow highlights seemed to help. Finally decreased the yellow of the highlights some.

Daviskw · #3 06-12-2006, 04:22 PM

If it is an important picture you can make it at least presentable. With a higher resolution and less jpeg artifacts you can bring up the brightness I believe.

Butch

rjgonzalez · #4 06-15-2006, 10:07 AM

The image I am working with is a photograph that was scanned in at 300 dpi and saved as a tif file. I am saving as jpg in order to post it here, so I don't know if that is causing some of the problems. I have been a paint shop pro user and I am now trying to learn Photoshop.

I am not familiar with the different modes, but below is an attempt to improve the picture. I first changed to LAB mode and applied a brightness/contrast adjustment layer. I then applied an levels adjustment layer and adjusted all three channels. Switched back to RGB mode and applied an auto Level adjust layer. After I made all my changes I then used Neat Image to the get my final result. I am happy with the results I got, but I don't know if this is the best it can get.

When I read Philbach comment about "Image Adjustment Shadow highlights" I expected to see an option under Image Adjustment called Shadow. How do I apply Shadow highlights?

Thanks for the suggestions and help.

Flora · #5 06-15-2006, 01:05 PM

Hi rjgonzalez,

welcome to RP!!

Quote:

Originally Posted by rjgonzalez

When I read Philbach comment about "Image Adjustment Shadow highlights" I expected to see an option under Image Adjustment called Shadow. How do I apply Shadow highlights?

.... Depending on which version of Photoshop you are using The Shadow/Highlight Option is exactly where Phil says: Image->Adjustments->Shadow/Highlight ... This Option is available from Photoshop CS upwards only ....

rjgonzalez · #6 06-15-2006, 01:36 PM

I am using Photoshop 7 so that explains why I don't have the option available to me. Is there a manual way I can achieve in PS 7?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flora

Hi rjgonzalez,

welcome to RP!!

.... Depending on which version of Photoshop you are using The Shadow/Highlight Option is exactly where Phil says: Image->Adjustments->Shadow/Highlight ... This Option is available from Photoshop CS upwards only ....

RokcetScientist · #7 06-15-2006, 03:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Flora

[...]Image->Adjustments->Shadow/Highlight ... This Option is available from Photoshop CS upwards only ....

Quote:

Originally Posted by rjgonzalez

I am using Photoshop 7 so that explains why I don't have the option available to me. Is there a manual way I can achieve in PS 7?

PhotoLine32 (shareware; get it here) can do that same thing under Filter –> Digital camera –> Light/Shadow...

It's for Windows XP and Mac OSX!

http://i75.photobucket.com/albums/i3...ightShadow.jpg