Need help with photos

[lolli]

Hi all I am new and not great at anything yet but would love to have some ideas on what was best to do with a photo thanks Pat

[palms]

Hello and welcome Lolli

you will learn loads here and will soon come up with some ideas yourself

but

firstly could you repost your image a bit bigger it is too small for us here if you need any help with that read this
Then a few people may well jump in

Palms

[oojosheoo]

i agree with palms1

Bigger image please

[lolli]

sorry abouut this but not sure how to get pic bigger but still able to load here help?

[lolli]

hope this works

[TommyO]

Well Pat, welcome and thanks for posting. You did not say what software package you are using. It could depend on that.

If Photoshop at CS3 or above, then I would try just opening the image in Adobe Camera Raw (ACR) first. It can be found by clicking File... Browse... which opens Bridge. Then navigate to the file and right click to open in ACR.

ACR offers many adjustments. Stick to the first tab if you are just starting out in ACR.

I'll come back and throw out a sample after dinner !
(done - just realize it's done with your thumbnail, upsampled, adjusted, then downsampled again... that's a lot of pixel loss.)

[RAG]

Hello Lolli,

I don't know if you ever got help on this picture or not. If you did not here is one of many simple quick fixes you may do in Photoshop. Open the image, copy the background layer and set the new layers blend mode to screen. You will notice a huge improvement right away. From there you may adjust the new layers opacity to adjust the lightening effect. You may also do I as did in the attached sample and use a layer mask to keep the sunset the original tone. This should get you started.

I hope this helps!

[chillin]

I opened the file in raw & did most of the corrections there. Then did some minor levels adjustment w/opacity 50%.

[0lBaldy]

Just an idea.

Pretty young Lady!

[LaDair]

Hi Lolli,

It's really a low resolution file as mentioned so it isn't going to show as well on the posts as it would on the real file. But it gives you an idea of where I was going

She has beautiful eyes that really sparkle.

LaDair

[lolli]

Thanks so much to all I love what you did and surely need the advice I have purchased cs3 but haven't a clue I am trying to learn out of necessity I am trying to get back my studio lost in Katrina and lost my retoucher also so now what can I do.. I do alot of pageant ( I know I know) work as well as other but with all new equipent I feel lost.Thanks bunches I love this forum the only place I have found with true talent Pat

[garibaldi]

Heres a different angle, try fixing it while you shoot, kick ambient back in from behind using reflectors, not your on camera flash. You camera metered for some of the background light and yielded a darker foreground illumination.

[lolli]

At last something constuctive and not as mean as usual still a little bite but toned down . I appreciate oh master.

[RokcetScientist]

I think you should spotmeter and use the AEL Automatic Exposure Lock. And the suggestion of kicking some more ambient light back in with reflectors is good. Better than flash. Diffused fill beats point-sourced harsh shadows. Anyway your flash seems to have fired but didn't have enough impact. So if you insist on flash fill you could get a bigger flash. Or you could dial in an exposure compensation of about +1,5F/stop.
If you shot RAW you'd have a couple stops latitude either way.
And you could end up with something like this, before & after.
http://i288.photobucket.com/albums/l...c1savg-3x2.jpg
With a higher res image I might have attempted some more close-up touch ups.