Obscured Flash

[nadger]

Hi guys

Just joined RetouchPro. I've had plenty experience of hand-retouching but I'm new to digital.
My wife took the attached photo at a friend's wedding recently but the brim of her hat obscured the hot-shoe-mounted flash which has resulted in chronic uneven exposure. I have spent hours in Photoshop but can't achieve anything reasonable.
Any suggestions/tips would be greatly appreciated.
Many thanks

Nadge

[mistermonday]

nadge, welcome to RP. All you need is to make a Shadow/Highlight adjustment to raise the brightness of the shadows (see attachment). I also applied a noise reduction filter to remove some of the noise cause by underexposure. If you don't like the warm incandescent color you can apply one of the many tools to shift the hue of this image like a Selective Color Adj or Hue/Sat.
Regards, Murray

[ktg222]

I brought the image into Bridge and then made three exposures and corrections in ACR. One for the lower 1/3, one for the background, one for the couple. I masked these layers. I also made a Softlight layer to dodge and burn, especially the man's arm. I copied some good texture from the arm and masked these together for the arm and painted it with blue in color blend mode. Neat Image noise reduction.

k

[ibowie]

Hi,

A couple of options:

I selected the dark area and feathered the selection.

I then added a curve adjistment area and adjusted the brightness.

I then cloned some of the sleeve, but left some dark to add 3 dimensions.

The second case, I just went wild.

First tries.

Wish the couple "A' ra best" as would be said in my part of the world.

[ibowie]

Hi,
#
the first image was missing so here it is:

This is the one described in the last reply.

[0lBaldy]

Nadge, welcome to RetouchPRO Hope you enjoy your visits here!

A lot of levels, curves, masking and painting on new layers Plus a good amount of Practice cubed!

Don't ask the steps 'cause I have no idea... T'was a trial and error approach!

Larger version here

[DCobb]

Not quite as good as some of the other, but good practice.

dc

[nadger]

Hi Guys

Thanks all for your brilliant efforts. 0lBaldy - good idea not to post the steps as I'd get well and truly lost!

Thanks for your time guys - much appreciated. I just have a few more to sort out but they're not as challenging as this one

This is a top forum - I'd never have expected such a great response.

Cheers
Nadge