Over at my favorite photography blog, I ♥ Faces they are giving us the chance to ask for help on a picture…
And boy, do I need it.
I have a friend Kaley, who runs a terrific money saving blog called ChaChing on a Shoestring. We met for lunch a few months ago and I took this awful picture of her.
She is a really beautiful woman but this photo is HORRIBLE!
I realize that some photos are just plain poor and no amount of editing can make them better — so if you think that’s the case, just say so. I can take it.
Here is what I did wrong:
- I used my Point and Shoot camera – it was the only one I owned at the time.
- I had a toddler in my lap so I just pointed and shooted.
- I was a bit self conscious about asking her to move around, even knowing that there was the window behind her. I should have stood up and shot from the other side so that the sun wasn’t so strong coming in the window. Oh well.
- I should have realized that the remnants of a McDonalds lunch don’t add much to the value of a picture. YIKES! Lesson learned: I don’t ever want to take another picture at a McDonald’s Play Place!
Having acknowledged all those short comings, is there any way to make this a better picture? Can I balance out the over-exposure of the background, with the dark shadows of her face.
This is what I tried to do:
- I’ve selected the background and darkened it.
- I’ve selected her face and lightened it (plus a little sharpen).
- I’ve tried to balance the levels, exposure, gamma thingys, but nothing seems to help.
This is the best I’ve come up with…
Is it beyond help? I’m (learning to use) CS3.
Thanks! I really appreciate the input from those who know what their doing!!
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
What were the settings on your camera when you took the photo?
You are right, she is a beautiful subject.
I probably would not have taken the photo shooting directly at the window, and with all the "stuff" on the table. I probably would have posed her standing next to the window, so that the light coming in would have illuminated her but not drown her out. When shooting into a lit window it sometimes makes a silhoutte of your subject. Which is cool if you intended that look.
I would play with Camera Raw in Photoshop with the Exposure and Recovery sliders. I'd also tone down the brightness and increase the fill light slightly.
Then I may do a black and white conversion to balance out some of the graininess.
I would decrease the saturation of the red in her face… that would probably allow you to increase the brightness. And I would do some denoising also.
Maybe some vignette? Or a "glow" kind of effect? I'm thinking of the "glow" tool in Picasa, but I'm sure Photoshop has something similar.
Good luck!
Color edit:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y286/NanasMama/DSCN4804editfinal.jpg
b/w edit:
http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y286/NanasMama/DSCN4804editfinalbw.jpg
You have a really good grasp of what went wrong with this shot. The backlighting confused your meter and resulted in a really underexposed subject. I extracted her from the background and lightened her repeatedly using curves. I ran noiseware on full strength and layered some textures behind her (not at full opacity). Then I added the sunflare. I'm not sure you'd want to do this to every picture that turned out this way.
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Next time you'll be brave! and bold! And ask her to switch places with you so the light will be on her face and not behind her. There's nothing wrong with a point and shoot or a camera phone. You can get great shots if you keep an eye on what the light is doing and know the limitations of your camera inside and out. And actually, I really like those big windows at fast food restaurants for good catchlights
Good luck in your photographic journey!
I would still crop it a little closer. I think you can totally eliminate the McDonald's meal without looking like you're zooming in too close.
I'm not sure about correcting the exposure, as I know nothing about PhotoShop. I think it might be possible, but I'm not sure how.
Sharon,
You have a very good grasp of the technical errors in this image, some of which could have been combated, as others mentioned, by swapping seats with your friend. If you had this same scenario with a DSLR, you could have remained in place with wiggly toddler on your lap and simply expose for her face and not the light streaming in the window. The point and shoot merely saw the vast quantity of light and exposed based upon that input.
I used CS3 to rework your image. I first opened it in Camera Raw, which allows a lot of easy corrections before even entering PS. I bumped exposure to +2.1, added fill light, inc. the brightness by +5 and added contrast to +13. I also went into Hue/Saturation and adjusted the reds and oranges for her face. Finally, I brought the noise down by adjusting Luminance to 39. Now I open into PS.
I cropped to minimize the clutter, but I didn't remove it completely. I am not good at extracting like AJ, so I don't even try! I then went to Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp mask to sharpen some details. I then did Filter>Noise>Reduce Noise to remove some of the graininess. Finally I went to Layer>New Adjustment Layer>Exposure and moved offset to -0.0294 to add a bit more contrast to the image.
You can see my finished product here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/31335390@N02/3974127603/
Oh my word–this is so fun! I feel like I'm getting a free makeover!
Thanks, everyone!
I can tell she is beautiful because she has a great smile : ) I hope you get some great advice because I am not that great at editing
Next time, try to zoom in more on the subject. Your camera was shooting the outdoors so fabulously and your friend not so much!
Sorry I don't really know much about editing pics…I am learning it all myself. I just wanted to say that the second pics look much better. I understand you don't like the shadows on her face but it really look way better than the first
Happy a great weekend!!
What a fun game!