[pranavy]

Retouch gurus,

I am novice to photo editing. In the attached photo, the person's face is partially covered with shadow due to the nearby tree. Can someone suggest me how exactly I can correct such a photo ? I have many such photographs to be rectified

Thanks in advance for all your help.

Pranav

[James Penner]

Hi Pranav,

Well, this is REALLY quick and dirty, but is this something like what you had in mind?

[michalj]

Could you tell what tools you used please, I'm trying this picture for hour now, with manipulating levels, curves and dodge and all results devastate face, colors too much :/

[des151]

Hi pranavy,
Copy the bg layer and set to screen mode. Then make a mask of his face and gaussion blur (8.2) the mask. I hope this helps.
Ray

[jimhob]

Here's my attempt. Just some d&b on the entire shadow area, clean up on the eye, crop and remove pen.

The image was small and not great quality but it turned out ok. IMHO

[DCobb]

This is my try.
dc

[jimhob]

Originally Posted by michalj

Could you tell what tools you used please, I'm trying this picture for hour now, with manipulating levels, curves and dodge and all results devastate face, colors too much :/

How are you dodging? If you are going to use Photoshop dodge tool use it at a very low exposure and on the midtones for this image.

I suggest duplicating the layer filling it with 50% gray and changing to mode of the layer to Overlay. Then taking a soft brush at about 3-12% flow and paint with black or white to dodge and burn. make lots of slight adjustments. This way you can erase if you need to do so and it will restore or you can delete the layer and start over. it's a nondestructive way to dodge and burn. I hope this helps.

[Cameraken]

Hi Pranav.

Welcome to Retouch Pro

I increased the size (posted image is a bit small)
Lots of selective levels adjustments.
A little cloning on the wall
Some colouring on the shirt

Sharpened
Neat Image (on face only)

Also some selective hue/sat to reduce colour on neck and forehead.

Ken.

[James Penner]

Originally Posted by michalj

Could you tell what tools you used please, I'm trying this picture for hour now, with manipulating levels, curves and dodge and all results devastate face, colors too much :/

Hi michalj,

Here's the technique I used:

Duplicate layer
Change the duplicate's blending mode to Exclusion
New Layer
Apply Image to the new layer and delete the layer set to Exclusion

You should now have two layers, your background layer and a layer that shows the Exclusion version of the image. That layer should be set to the Normal blending mode.

I then masked out the Exclusion layer, painting it back where I wanted the shadow to disappear.

After that, I sampled some colour from his face and used that to paint over areas that had become a little desaturated.

I finished off by tweaking the colour a little with a Curves adjustment

It may not be the most elegant solution, but it’s pretty quick.

Screen or Linear Dodge would have probably worked well, too.

Hope that helps.

[solitear]

Hi Panavy.....

I just finished typing about 10 steps to achieve the results below but when I tried to upload the photo, my browser couldn't find the server...... basically, I:

Converted to Lab color

Ctrl+J to duplicate layer and set blend mode to Screen

Adjusted opacity of this layer

Reduced the Saturation

Flattened

Selected the shadow area

Added Curves Adj. layer and lightened then blurred harsh edges

Adjusted opacity of that layer

Flattened

Some cloning and Dodge & Burn

I'm so sorry this was cut short, I normally give detailed steps (I gave them the first time around but am rushed now)...

Beth

[Daviskw]

Hi there

With my version I switched to lab then use the lightness channel and curves to lighten the face.

Butch

[Bernardinaus]

I selected the shadow area with a 15 pixel lasso and used curves to lighten and change color, then "hue" to increase saturation.
Hopefully the set of curves and hue shift are attached! I'm still new at this

[Gary Richardson]

Had a quick go with this (about 2-3 mins).

Duplicated to new layer, applied levels to this layer, then masked areas I didn't want to lighten. Then I increased the saturation of the new layer and sharpened the layer as well.

Still needs a little hand work to improve around the moustache area, but gets you somewhere close and gives you a starter.

[Cassidy]

Did a rough selection of the shadowed part of the face, made it into a mask, gaussian blurred the mask to muddy the edges and then used a curves adjustment followed by a levels adjustment

[TheVeed]

I did a really quick D&B and color tweak, but it seems do-able, if u spend some time on it.