Color Photo...Fix Exposure

[cducasse]

I was trying to fix the exposure in this photo...and can't seem to get it right...how do you think I could fix it. I have seen the tutorials on how to do them in Black & White, but nothing on color...

THanks in advance for any help!

[mistermonday]

The detail in the overexposed areas is completely blown away. If your Canon took the original in RAW format you might be able to recover some detail. However if this jpg is all you have, then you won't recover any data from this file. One option would therefore be to replace the sky and try to patch in the blown away areas from other good images of the same people - a lot of work that may not be worth the effort. The other option is to tone down the brightness, replace the sky, but the main subjects will look dull and featureless.
Regards, Murray

[cducasse]

Any work for me would be worth the effort, it's the only photo that I have of my parents and I at my own wedding...i'll be trying some stuff...thanks

[mistermonday]

Well, you should be able to make a lot of improvement. You can darken the tuxedos and replace the sky as I have done here (very quickly). I stopped here but you can copy faces from a good photo and you should easily be able to find a white shirt and overlay a new dress or texture on what is there.
Good luck with the restoration.
Regards, Murray

[Janet Petty]

I assume you want the faces in more detail and the rest of the photo is less important. Correct?

On that assumption, I downloaded the photo and created a duplicate of the background layer.

I changed the blanding mode of the layer to multiply and created a hide-all mask. I then painted with white on the mask to reveal the faces. This masked layer was then duplicated until details were better (not perfect, just better). It did, however, increase detail in the faces quite well.

Because of the drastic compression of the photo, the more I duplicated the multiply layer, the more artifacts became apparent. If the artifacting had not been such a problem, I would then have merged the layers and began cleanup and tweaking of the remaining problems.

I'm not posting the picture because after working on it, it looked worse than when I began. Again that was due to the low quality of the picture.

I'm reasonably sure you have a higher quality version. Try this technique and see if it doesn't go a long way toward solving the problem. Sorry I couldn't be more help.

Janet

[Kraellin]

cducasse,

you have two options and two options only. because the whites are almost all R=255, G=255, B=255, you cant do any contrasting; you cant split out the channels to rgb or cmyk or hsl or lab. histogram adjustments arent going to work. levels isnt going to work and curves isnt going to work. there is no contrast between 255, 255, 255 and 255, 255, 255. so there's no detail to work with. so, the only options are to either borrow detail from somewhere else or create the detail yourself. that's it.

we've got some excellent artists around here that might be able to rebuild the faces. there is enough to work with to do that. or, as others suggested, find other images of these folks and cut and paste them in.

good luck

craig

[Swampy]

I'm going to tell you right off the bat, that I am not good at colorizing photos and the sample below was done quickly, but it is possible to put some color back into the photo. (A higher resolution photo would be much easier to work with)

1. Did a Shadow/Highlight adjustment (no shadows, just highlights to the max). This helps put pixels back into the white areas, because you just can't apply color where there the color is blown out.

2. Added a Selective color AJ (set to Multiply) to the whites and tried to select something that simulated skin tones. Filled the mask with black and painted this adjustment into the face/hands with a 10% opacity soft white brush

3. Load a selection from the previous layer's mask then add a Color Fill AJ with a flesh tone color selected and blend mode of Color burn.

Tweak these two masks as needed. Vairy brush opacity etc.

4. Add a curves AJ to taste.

I know there are masters here that can add makeup to mom, smooth the skin tone etc. But this might help get you going in the right direction.

[Flora]

Hi,

cducasse,

what everybody has already said (Attachment 1).... and since images speak louder than words .... here is my result after toning down the highlights using a Levels Adjustment Layer set to multiply on the highlights ... (Attachment 2)

(I do hope that, like Janet said, working on a higher resolution you'll get better results...)