New Member - improving dark cast on photo

[Mona]

I found this website a few weeks ago and I'm looking forward to spending more time here. Everyone seems very helpful and friendly! I currently use Photoimpact and have also used Photoshop Elements for my graphics editing. I would like to learn Photoshop in the future.

For my first post I thought I would ask for a little help. I have approximately 10 photos from an event that need enhancing. I have scanned the pictures using an HP6200C. Several pictures have a dark cast on the right side of the picture. What would cause this and more importantly, how can I edit this?

Also, for photo improvements in general, in what order should editing tasks be carried out?

Thanks for your comments!

Mona

[Noelf]

I found this website a few weeks ago and I'm looking forward to spending more time here. Everyone seems very helpful and friendly! I currently use Photoimpact and have also used Photoshop Elements for my graphics editing. I would like to learn Photoshop in the future.

For my first post I thought I would ask for a little help. I have approximately 10 photos from an event that need enhancing. I have scanned the pictures using an HP6200C. Several pictures have a dark cast on the right side of the picture. What would cause this and more importantly, how can I edit this?

Also, for photo improvements in general, in what order should editing tasks be carried out?

Thanks for your comments!

Mona

If the original photos didn't have the color change, more than likely you had the edge of the photo right up against the edge of the scanner.

This can cause the picture to slightly raise off the glass, or to be slightly outside of the bulbs lighting area.

If that is the case, I would just rescan them with the picture more in the center of the glass and see if that helps things.

- Noel

[Mona]

If the original photos didn't have the color change, more than likely you had the edge of the photo right up against the edge of the scanner.

This can cause the picture to slightly raise off the glass, or to be slightly outside of the bulbs lighting area.

If that is the case, I would just rescan them with the picture more in the center of the glass and see if that helps things.

- Noel

Hi Noel,

Unfortunately the originals do have the color change so it won't be as easy as a rescan. Thanks.

[Noelf]

Hi Noel,

Unfortunately the originals do have the color change so it won't be as easy as a rescan. Thanks.

Ah, that makes it a little more difficult then

Ok, I'm not positive how this works in Elements, but I'm going to give you the Photoshop answer.

I would copy the layer, make it a lighten layer. Then using a gradient mask on the lighten layer, I would basically only lighten the area that is affected. (example 1)

From there I would use the clone brush to take care of the sky, and some of the trees and then darken it up a little from there.
(example 2)

The below is very quick and dirty. If you spend a little time on it, you can definitely make it look much nicer.

I'm fairly certain something similiar is doable in Elements, someone with more experience in Elements can probably chime in and say so

- Noel

[Vikki]

Not being familiar with the software you are using, I would make this suggestion:
Look through the restoration challenges, for an image that has a similar problem as yours.
Check out the members work to get an idea about how they fixed it (most write full descriptions of how they did the repairs).
Having that information, if you are experienced with your own particular software, you could translate the steps used, into ones that will work in your program.

[W. Rose]

Golf Course

Hi Mona,

I am not an expert here Mona, but this is what i did in Photoshop for this picture.
Used clone for sky and part of the tress and grass
Selected the sign and used a hue saturation on this
Used unsharp mask to make the final adjustment
Hope this help somewhat, maybe someone else will jump in here that is alot better than i am.

[Mona]

Hi All,

Thanks for the suggestions about the photo and for taking a stab at improving it. The picture was taken in a southern state so I'm not sure how green to make the golf course. I'd like to keep it as realistic as possible. Is there a way to tell if one color channel over another is dominating things? Also, I've included a screen shot of the levels screen below. Why is the histogram so flat looking? What does this say about the picture?

Thanks,

Mona

* I added a second screen shot of the blue channel. The red and green channel were the same as the master.

[Mona]

Hello,

I posted a message early this morning and it is no longer here. I also posted two pictures and now they are attached to another person's post. What happened? Does anyone else get the golfcourse photos when they click on the photos in the next post? Can this be corrected?

Thanks,

[Flora]

Hi Mona,

I got to see your 'vanished' post and I actually wanted to answer (you were asking about fixing the sky....) ... but when I logged on again, your last post was gone .... I thought you had changed your mind and deleted it....

Let me try to find out what happened...

[Flora]

Hi Mona,

... me again .... It seems that what happened to your post and pictures is a direct consequence of RP's announced move to a new server....

There shouldn't be any more 'weirdness' now ....

[Susan S.]

I use Elements for retouching - but I do have the free tools available from Richard Lynch's hidden power of Photoshop Elements site http://hiddenelements.com/ as well as his tools from his book (he has a forum here on this site if you want to know more about these tools)

I started off by doing a basic levels adjustment on the image, doing it to the three channels separately. This helped but still left the red cast on the left. I tried masking the right hand side and playing with HSB layers and the color cast tool, just working on that red area - you can either do this masking using grouped layers or by using a layer mask add on from the free hidden power tools.
Still not happy I went to what is fast becoming one of my favorite tools for colour correction targeted at specific areas of an image, when correcting using other methods fails- selective colour (from the free hidden power addons). I removed the red and yellow from the neutrals and whites ie cyan slider to the right, yelow slider to the left, fiddled at the edges.
then increased saturation oversall with HSB and sharpened.
It's still a bit grey on the rhs but not too bad

[Mona]

Hi Flora and all,

I'm reposting part of my "lost post" and will also repost the photos. That is strange what happened!

After editing the photo with Photoimpact I fixed all but the casting on the right side. To fix the casting I selected various sections using the magic wand. I wanted to select as much of the orange section as possible. I then copied and pasted these sections as new images, selected the desired color from the good section of the photo, used the colorize pen to apply it, then copied the image back to the original. The grass sections were kind of different since the selection was sporadic - which was okay because it allowed some of the original grass to peep through. I lassoed the tree section that meets the sky and used the magic eraser to get rid of the rest of the orange. The sign was done the same way - once to select the letters and once to select the wood. The photo still had a shadow on the right side so I used the enhance lighting feature - first on narrow strips of the affected area and later on the whole image. I used the fadeout feature so my lighting would blend with the left half of the picture. The only thing I had to do in Elements was use the dust and scratches filter at the beginning of the editing process.

I still need to work on the sky but I'm going to wait until I edit other photos from that day/event that show the sky bluer so I can try to match the color. I'm assuming I would do a gradient fill to accomplish that.

I'll have to read up on the hidden tools for Elements! Masks are not my favorite thing to do - probably because I haven't taken the time to learn them. You make it sound so easy!

[Flora]

Hi Mona,

...glad to see your post 'back'!

I think you did a great job with the golf course picture!

I don't know if you can work with Layers with the software you are using ... If 'yes', here is a very simple and fast way to correct a 'blown out' sky...

• Create a new empty layer on top of everything else and set the blending to 'Multiply'.

• Use a gradient (as you mentioned already) Foreground Color (of your choice or sampled from a 'better' sky from "other photos from that day/event") to transparent.

Hi Susan,

I think you did very well ... ... it could be my monitor, but now, Green seems the dominant colour in your version....

[Susan S.]

Hi Susan,

I think you did very well ... ... it could be my monitor, but now, Green seems the dominant colour in your version....

Looking at it again I agree - although actually on my screen it's more of a cyan cast than green - I obviously went too far on the reduce red/increase cyan slider! It's funny how an image that looks fine when you've just done it looks not quite so good after a break of a day!

Edit: does this look any better? Same technique - basic levels adjustment to get the overall colour back in line then a masked levels and HSB adjustment to even out the right hand side and then a selective colour to remove the red and yellow form the neutrals and whites to make the sky look better. While it is not as vibrant as the versions that you and Mona did it has the advantage of all being done with adjustment layers - no selection or fancy masking involved. If you have a whole roll of film that is affected the same way it would be a simple matter to copy the same adjustment layers to all the images, to at least give a starting point that could be improve by doing cloning etc for each image.

[Flora]

Hi Susan,

I think your picture looks great now! The one small detail (hope you won't hate me .... ) I'd correct, is the lack of saturation on the right side of the picture ....

I also like to avoid making selections whenever possible, and I agree on the fact that, with your technique,

If you have a whole roll of film that is affected the same way it would be a simple matter to copy the same adjustment layers to all the images, to at least give a starting point that could be improve by doing cloning etc for each image.