help w/photo with closed eyes

[bethgug]

Hello,
Can anyone please help me....my eyes are closed. I've attached a similar photo with my eyes open.
I would appreciate any help!
Beth

[0lBaldy]

Beth, Welcome to RetouchPRO Hope you enjoy your stay here and make lots of friends. Poke around, ask questions, have fun!

Depending on the software you have available to you.. this is a fairly easy fix using the provided photos.. a much higher resolution of each would be highly recommended though because these copies are pixelated and have lost sharpness due to compression..

If you want to post a larger resolution that is over 100K then you can host your image elsewhere and attach a link in the thread, but also please attach an under 100K version, (so the thread remains useful in the future, regardless of external links).
Other Hosts if you do not have your own site:
ImageVenue.com (3Meg max, free) pixentral.com (2Meg max, free) photobucket.com (1 Meg max free, 5 Meg PRO) mediafire.com (100 Meg per file, free) dropbox.com (2 gig free)
Post a link in the thread to the picture at the site that is hosting the larger image.

FAQ: Will you do my restoration/retouch/repair for me?
No. This is a site for learning, and we will gladly help you learn to do it yourself. We have a "Image Help" forum just for that purpose. Click on "Forums" on the navbar to get there. There is also a "Classifieds" forum if you're willing to pay one of our members to work on your photo.

A couple approaches would be a simple copy the open eyes and paste and resize over the closed picture (what I did)... OR .. get both head sizes relatively the same size and clone the open over the closed on a new layer then resize

(After clicking on the GIF Thumbnail wait a bit for it to change)

[Tony W]

Now that is one spooky image Olbaldy

[bethgug]

I guess I picked the wrong place to ask for help.....don't really appreciate the scary photo of me...

[John Wheeler]

Hi Beth

The directions that OlBaldy gave are good steps. It is not clear what software you have to make the adjustments. If you don't have software or are uncomfortable with these steps then such adjustments would probably not take a lot of work by a retoucher again as OlBaldy indicated. It was pretty difficult to try to show some example repairs. Once the images are compressed quite a bit to JPEG format it introduces some artifacts.

On top of what OlBaldy did, I also mirrored your face and blended it in with a Layer Mask and then using Refine Mask to do a little fine tuning. Sometimes having a little extra symmetry in the face can be helpful (it can also look very unnatural - the resolution was not high enough to tell which way to go - just providing some options). Hope this gives you some ideas.

Sorry you were put off on this thread. RetouchPro is a pretty nice group in my opinion. I read Tony's comments as just razzing OlBaldy about his results in retouching a difficult image due to JPEG compression rather than anything personal about you.

With two photos you have a good shot at getting the image repaired either by you if you have the software or with a retoucher. Either way, best wishes in moving forward.

Original on top, retouched on bottom. Click on thumbnail image to expand.
Optimized-100_0015-1.JPG

[Tony W]

Originally Posted by bethgug

I guess I picked the wrong place to ask for help.....don't really appreciate the scary photo of me...

Hi Beth, I am truly sorry if you took my comment the wrong way as it was not intended to be an insult in any shape or form to you! You certainly do not look like a spooky or scary lady

John is correct it was intended to be a little razzing OlBaldy, again intended in good humour. What happened to cause me to make the comment was I opened OlBaldys image without reading first the comments made about the image. At first sight I could not see what had been done then your eyes suddenly opened - hence spooky

From this your first post (BTW, Welcome to the Forum) I am guessing that you do not have a great deal of experience in in photo editing. You also do not say what software you will use. Assuming you do actually want to do this yourself then I am happy to try and offer some help.

An easy approach may be to follow something like in my attachment:
1. Bring both images into PS (or whatever you use)
2. Select the whole head area and copy
3. Paste copy into and over original photo with eyes closed
4. Resize head and eyes to match
5. Add a layer mask and using a soft edged brush paint around the head areas to hide all but the eyes.

[daygraphics]

Previous posters are correct in that we generally don't simply do retouching for those who need it, but rather, advise them on techniques a and software capabilities enabling to do it themselves. But given your post, I gather that you don't have the software to do it your self.

Given that the process would take all of 5 minutes (regardless of how you undertake it), I just did it for you. Also, I surmised that you simply liked the whole face - smile, eyes, etc of the better of the two, so I just blended the two.

The two pictures just looked like the group of you got together for a group shot. Nothing you are going to market or sale - so if you have a higher res (original camera capture) you can send it to me Email and I will gladly switch out your eye's etc. Again, not to diminish the point that others are making - because they are right - it just appears that you are not a RetouchPro and I would be glad to help you out with this simple fix.