Removing Strips of Sunlight from Faces

[T Paul]

I'm looking for some retouching hints. I have a photo where the people in it have streaks of sunlight across their faces. What is the best approach for removing the light out of their faces? I've attached a small portion of the photo for review. I figure cloning is an option, but was wondering what other ways of retouching this type of problem are out there.


THANKS

-T

[DannyRaphael]

This won't solve all of your challenge, but it might help for parts of it...

I duplicated the Background layer and flipped it horizontally. (Fortunately her head and eyes are level.)

I turned off the Background copy layer so I could create vertical guides through her eyes...then turned Background copy layer on again and nudged it until the eyes aligned.

Created a layer mask, inverted it, and painted white (where I could) to let the "good areas" from top layer show through.

(Don't confuse this with a stellar job... just a quickie to give you some food for thought.)

I'll bet Jak will have a really slick solution!

~Danny~

[Jakaleena]

Awwww, jeez... Nuthin' like a li'l pressure!

(Thank ya, Danny for the compliment - now if I can only live up to it... )

Okaaaaayyyyyyy, here's what I did:

Selected the area with the magic wand tool (set to 30/Not contiguous)

Hit quick mask, refined the selection with the paintbrush and blurred the selection, exited quick mask

Desaturated selected area

Chose skin color with the eyedropper, made a new layer, filled selected area @ 100% and set layer to Multiply

Contracted my selection and did the fill/multiply thing again (on another layer)

Repeated one more time

Flattened

Made a new layer and blended it all together by painting. Also painted in shadows on sides of nose.

Added noise to the paint layer and flattened

I didn't fix all of the discoloration, but you get the idea...

[T Paul]

Thanks Danny and Jak! I will experiment with both techniques. I had played around with the patch tool with good results, but there was a tendency to leave some hints of purple (I think from the spectrum effect of the sunlight). The results was it made her look like she was wearing a lot of glittery make-up. This one will keep me busy as all the faces in the entire photo have light streaks as well as the clothes, but it's a cute mother daughter photo and I want to try and repair it.

-T