How to remove spotlight

[spence]

Hi,
I have a very important photo which hs been ruined by a spotlight on the most important member in the group.
Can anyone guide/help me in the best way to remove the spotlight & yellow tinge?

Any help gratefully accepted.

http://http://www.flickr.com/photos/[email protected]/11196845024/

Regards Spence

[genf]

Re: How to remove spotlight

This is quite difficult. The spotlight casts all sorts of light, color etc. on the man's face. All skin roughness is accentuated in a way that is hard to correct.
Anyway, as no one else has replied yet, I gave it a try. I am far from a professional retoucher, so other forum members may do better.

This is roughly how I did it. Convert to LAB color mode, as separating color from lightness may be helpful. Make a rough selection of the parts that get directly illuminated by the spotlight. Open a curves adj. layer and get the A and B values right (e.g. similar to someone else on the picture). Now select the parts that are somewhat half in shadow. Repeat the process. Move on to the parts that are in shadow.
Repeat the process for lightness corrections, mostly using the same masks.
Some local correction may still be necessary afterwards.

I attached my result. It may look OK at first sight, but when zooming in, the face still looks unnatural.

[girlsfather]

Re: How to remove spotlight

The direction of the light in the mans face, caused by the spotlight, has a totally different direction than the rest of the picture: It is coming from above. That does not match the mood of the rest of the composing and makes it look like a collage.

You might try dodge and burn to change the shadows on the mans face - make them shorter underneath nose, chin,... and add shadow depth on top of his head, as the rest of the picture is lit by flash coming from camera direction.

[Tony W]

Re: How to remove spotlight

Obviously agree with what has been said so far.

This is a particularly difficult one to pull off convincingly due to the huge changes from the flat fairly even light of the flash vs the high contrast and very directional look from the spotlight.

Changes to the image are likely to look as stated like a composite

To get it right will take some effort and a little trial and error on your part. This will be a little time consuming I had a play and am still no where near satisfied but perhaps my suggestions may help you in your efforts. Still looks like a composite but is getting nearer and could be improved upon. Click on the image and wait a few seconds for changes

• Create a masked Curve layer for the man lit by spotlight reduce overall contrast and try for a better skin colour
• Borrow some pixels from elsewhere for the skin. I used the patch tool to replace the skin on the cheeks of the man using the lady camera right. Blend in with mask and changes of opacity.
• Dodge and burn shadow areas to try and flatten the lighting a little
• Sample skin colours from others in the image and paint on layers set to colour varying opacity.
• Dodge and burn shadow areas to try and flatten the lighting a little

EDIT: Added a JPEG as the animated gif lost something in translation - still not great but I think close enough to give an idea of where to go next?

[philbach]

Re: How to remove spotlight

Well I started by using a curves layer. I set the layer blending mode to luminosity and then lowered the brightest part to about 230. I then painted with a color layer and fiddled some.

[Janet Petty]

Re: How to remove spotlight

Phil, you are also the only one to remove the red eye. Good jobs so far and lots of good advice.

Obviously, I didn't work on this picture (no time); but one thing I've found when this happens is to do a frequency separation (so I keep the texture) and color on a blank layer below it. One other thing that might work is to create a gray layer in soft light mode above the subject, add another blank layer above the gray layer and color that one. Also, sometimes adding a bit of noise where there is little or no texture will work. Learned that last one from Vincent Versace on his BW pictures.

[0lBaldy]

Re: How to remove spotlight

Straightened and cropped.. used a masked Hue/Sat layer adjusting the Red, Yellow, Magenta colors to get close to the right skin colors for his forehead. then painted some with a flesh color obtained from the other people. ( a layer in softlight and a layer in color modes)... combined all and reduced the glare on the forehead by using the patch tool then fading to about 50%.. got rid of red eyes..
Softened shadows on spotlighted man using Patch tool by selecting a bit of the harsh shadow and some of the highlighted area then moving it to a even toned skin area then fading it by about 50% or less... depending.. Lowered the highlights on nose, cheeks, chin and lips the same way

[JoReam]

Re: How to remove spotlight

There are some good suggestions (listed above) One technique that hadn't been mentioned that I thought I might try was to isolate the gentleman from the group in one file and then match colour to a different file of the group with the gentleman removed. I tried this first, then tried a bit of colour balancing with the result on the gentleman, then placing him in the original picture I did a bit of selected cloning (with reduced opacity on the brush)....don't know if I'm any closer but thought I would post as another option for interest

[Gary]

Re: How to remove spotlight

Desaturated yellow, painted on a new layer in colour mode to remove any yellow on the clothing, another layer in colour mode to recolour his face sampling from various colours in the others then used curves adjustment layers to match the contrast of each subject... attempting to minimize the spotlight effect on the center male.

Cheers.

[Cupcake]

Re: How to remove spotlight

Here is my idea.
Remove shadows under eyes
Give all the people the same shade of color.
Large file available.

[genf]

Re: How to remove spotlight

Inspired by all other attempts, I decided to work further on my previous version. Things I did among others are: add flash reflection light, whitened teeth, remove spot light shadows on the old man's clothes, corrected hair color and many other small tweaks.

So, here is my second version.