Need Help Retouching Wife

[Stretch]

Hello all,

I need help with this photo of my wife taken in Positano, Italy at dusk.

As you can see, the sky is completely blown. I'd like to add some color to the sky. Is this possible? How about a composite, blending in a blue sky from another photo?

Also, I've tried fixing the overall tonality of the photo using a combination of screen, overlay and blend layers without much success.

So I now defer to your superior skill and judgment.

Any help is appreciated.

http://img132.imageshack.us/img132/9638/positanocr3.jpg

[irshgrlkc]

Have you tried Swampy's method? She seems to get great results. She outlines the process here...

Fixing a Blown Out Sky

Kerry

[Stretch]

Originally Posted by irshgrlkc

Have you tried Swampy's method? She seems to get great results. She outlines the process here...

Fixing a Blown Out Sky

Kerry

Thank you for your reply. I will try Swampy's method.

BTW, my camera was set at ISO 1600 resulting in the blown sky.

[Stretch]

Ok, i just tried using Selective Color Layer without success to change the white in the sky to blue. Moving the Cyan and Magenta sliders changed the color of the water and the mountain; however, the sky remains white.

[Daviskw]

Hi stretch

Here is a quick version... a little over saturated I'm afraid. I used a red channel copy. I inverted it then painted with white over the foreground and girl. Then with white or black as needed set to overlay and 50 opacity to refine the edges. I let the sea stay gray so the new background would blend.

When I was satisfied I ctrl clicked on my new layer to get a selection. Clicked on RGB then layer. Then I duplicated the background and on the top layer added a mask. The selection was transferred. Between the two layers I inserted a sea and sky picture.. It needs some cyan haze to match the cliff on the right but too lazy to do it...lol... That was it... lots more work but you get the idea.

Butch

[irshgrlkc]

Hi Stretch, I decided to try Swampy's method myself and was having the same problem with the selective color layer until I realized that I had not selected Absolute as opposed to Relative. Once I switched that no problem. Here is a TERRIBLY sloppy example.

Kerry

[Mig]

The bad news is this picture is not going to be able to handle much of anything you have in mind. The location of the subject relative to the lighting will create this problem.
Besides the lighting problem, the health of the photo is poor, as you can see when you look at its channels. However, the lightness & green channels are ok, so your best bet is to switch it to grayscale and use those channels as a foundation. I really doubt you can get acceptable results in colour, but the picture isn't a complete lost cause, although doing the opposite of what most would attempt is probably the way to go. You'll see this as people reply and post their ideas. Most will attempt to lighten the foreground to bring her out. It won't work. Not only will it look bad, but it also won't make any sense since the sun is pretty much hitting her in the back.

The good news is that while the photo might not be what you wanted - and it's a great shot too - at least you get to keep the girl. She's gorgeous.

Mig

[Gary Richardson]

Hard to give any real opinion on such a small picture 360x239 pix 46K.

Might help if you posted a larger copy of your image, the file size limit is 100K, so you should be able to manage something larger.

Flora has written some instructions on posting Images to the forums Here

[Cassidy]

Nothing sophisticated here, just the sky, no other alterations.

Selected the blown out area using the magic wand and a tolerance of 20.
Copied to new layer, keeping selection active.
Sampled the water in various areas including what appears to be slightly pink areas and drew rough lines in the selected area. Chose an orange to stroke near the water and a strong yellow to stroke down the hill.
Gaussian blur of 250

[makeovermagic]

lots of curves/levels/masks and gradient sky -- your wife is very beautiful and so is the photo.

marsha

[Daviskw]

Had another go this morning.

As before I used a channel, this time blue to make a mask for the new sky.

Butch

[TheVeed]

I don't know exactly what you had in mind, but this was my quick take on it. I was looking specifically for a hazy background to look more convincing.

[LonK]

I love the background you chose, TheVeed. Here's my take on it...

[Stretch]

Thank you all for your assistance.

Daviskw, TheVeed and LonK - I like your efforts a lot. I'm trying to duplicate your work but having trouble adding in the sky. I found a sky I want to use but my mask of the wife is too big. How do I make her (mask) smaller?

Also, any idea how to remove the car? Btw, notice how close the car is parked to the wall. The road is really narrow; yet Italian bus drivers managed to navigate the bus without any problem.

[Daviskw]

Will here is an attempt... not too good ...I picked the first wall texture I came to... kind of a blur.... But a start

As for you mask, You may try a adding a little gaussian blur to it. Then use a levels adjustment. Experiment with the sliders and watch your edges.

I often refine directly in a bad area by painting back in on the mask then painting back out again.

Butch

[duwayne]

Moved her to the mountians. I don't think the lighting direction is correct but it the best I could fine. I think I still need work on my selection skills.

[Stretch]

duwayne - Thanks for the effort. I'm not sure the mountains are appropriate. She's not dressed for it.

Thanks again for everyone's suggestions and efforts. It seems to me the consensus is the original blown sky cannot be fixed. A composite with new sky and clouds is needed.

Once a mask is created, is it better to move the wife into the new background or vice versa? Also, is it necessary to have the mask and the new background files the same size?

Thank you all. This is a great forum.

Dan

[Daviskw]

Hi Dan

If it were me I would move the new background into the existing picture.

The new background does not have to be the same size but should be close in resolution. Bigger is better than smaller.

Butch

[Daviskw]

I found the actual wall from a travel site... lower resolution though.

Butch

[Stretch]

OK, this is my first attempt ever at photo retouch/composite.

It took me a long time to do the mask. In the end, I used the blue channel and slid the shadow all the way to the right. Is this the proper way?

I then dropped in the new sky as you can see. I realize the sky color doesn't match the water (but I'm excited just too get this far). This is where I'm stuck. How do I fill in the rest of the water? Stamp Clone?

How do I get rid of the halo fringe around her head?

How do I mask everything except the water? I tried isolating the water with the highlight eyedropper but it also highlighted the girl as well.

Thank you again for everyone's effort and suggestions.

Dan

Daviskw - Might it be possible if you could send me the psd file?

[Daviskw]

Hi Dan

I am afraid I did not keep the file, but you have a good start. Your biggest problem I think is in the type of background replacement sky file. You need to find a file that has water as well as sky. That way the waters will blend and you will have a horizon. Check out the stock.xchng they have lots of quality photos you could use.
I included the background I used.

The halo around her hair is not a big problem. Notice the lower left shoulder and hair there is no halo there. That is because of the color of the background. When you add your background with water you will be blending the water and sky to match and there will not be a large luminance difference . Otherwise the water or sky showing thru her hair will better match the new background color.
You could also work on the mask but that would be pretty complicated to describe here. There are some good books out there to help you. One I would recommend is Photoshop Masking and Compositing by Katrin Eismann.

You may want to compare your mask with the one I posted earlier. Notice the circled area it is white to black with gray that will blend with the new background. After I made the mask from the blue channel copy, I ctrl clicked on the channel to load its luminance, clicked on RGB then back to the layer pallet with the selection still active. I made a duplicate of the background and while on the top duplicate layer I clicked the mask button in the layer option menu. This transferred the selection to the mask. Then I opened my sky and water picture and inserted it below the masked layer. I made a quick example from the Jpeg file to show my layer configuration.

Then I used curves to match the brightness and basic color of the existing and new waters. If needed you can spot brighten areas…say behind her head so the halo does not show.

Butch

[Kraellin]

some nice work here!

one thing to remember on this is, you have to add a horizen line. sky does not blend into sea in one fell gradient.

to create a horizen, i drew a 1 pixel line in blue across where i decided the horizen was/is. i then used the new 'color changer' in psp xi to change the too white areas to more blues and greens.

i then selected the sky based on brightness and changed this to solid blue and promoted this to a new layer.

i then used the MuRa's Meister plugin filter 'Cloud' to add in a new sky. this also added a semi-opaque cast over the entire layer. i wanted this semi-opaque to help blend in the sea with the rest of the sea as well as to put the clouds over the solid blue sky.

then i simply erased the parts of the blue, semi-opaque cast i didnt want.

i also ran a usm filter on the girl and land. she was a bit blurry.

copy merge, paste to new layer, reisized for posting, done!

craig

edit: oh yeah, i cloned out the power lines too.

[Pam]

I think the Veed has a great idea. It blends in realistically because it's hazy. Also, I think you can massage the tonality better if the image is monochrome. The colors are really falling apart when you try to do any adjustments. Here's an example using the Veed's image:



Pam
http://www.pbase.com/pam_r

[Stretch]

Is there an easy way to mask just the girl and the wall? Not necessarily easy, as long as it's effective.

I've tried isolating using channel mask but can't create enough contrast between the girl and the plants.

Thank you.

[Daviskw]

Stretch

You are not limited to using tools like levels or curves to create contrast... go ahead and pick a brush and set it to black or white and paint... Or use a paintbrush set to overlay with an opacity to 50 percent... that will allow you to refine your mask.

You can also use burn and dodge on highlights or shadow. And experiment with the opacity... and remember when the mask is done and in use you can still click on it and use tools to reveal and hide as needed.

Butch

[Stretch]

Daviskw, Kraellin - Thank you for your advice.

Here is my best effort. I gave up on the sky altogether and went for the all-water look. No sense trying to blend the sky and water (maybe after I've become more proficient).

I'm not happy with the hill in the background. It's too washed out. I could have cut it out but Positano would not be Positano without hills and mountains. I added the flare to hide the wash-out. How could I have fixed this?

I stamp-cloned out the car. I tried using Vanishing Point but gave up. The wall stone pattern could be much better I know.

The water background is really of Positano. I found the pic on Pbase. It's truly a beautiful piece of Italy.

All in all, I'm happy with my first attempt at photo retouch/composite. I thank you all for your valuable advices and efforts. This is a great forum. I think I'll stay a while.

Regards,

Dan

[Daviskw]

I think you did a very good job... I really like your wall and the water looks good. As a suggestion... I went on the net and found an acceptable picture of the exact same hillside. I will include it below. I inserted it as a smart object then used a mask to fit. I also took a little time to remove the lensflare from between her legs. Did it in a hurry but you can take a little time... I think it is coming along great.

Butch

[skyjely]

Hi All,
Here is my attempt to fix this print hope you like

I used a combination of mask's and background's images to get the sky
small mountains and added boats
I added a curve layer to improve the color over all; And extended the white dress a little.Here is a revise version

P/S: How do I upload larger then 100k file? I notice when I click on some
of the other Images they open up at large scale.

[Stretch]

Skyjely,

How did you make the dress to extend? Liquify?

Dan

[skyjely]

Hi Dan
I copy and Paste the area I need to extend;Then I use the free transfrom tool to make the dress look right.Make sure you overlap the copy and paste
Image then use a layer mask and paint off the overlap area blending
it with the bottom layer.

Cheers!
Skyjely