Specific Asking for a miracle please to define picture

[Gwah & Sifu]

Hello to all you beautiful talented people. I have a photo of myself with one of my granddaughters, unfortunately the light from the background affected the outcome. It would be my favorite photo without this issue. I am not tech savvy at all, and wouldn't even know where to begin and havnt had the heart to delete it. Thankfully I randomly came across this website. I wondered anyone is able to create a miracle to make my photo visibly clear. I will post 2 images, one of the photo to be fixed and one of me which shows the details of my Moko Kauae and facial features. Many thanks and hugs in advance.

 

[ex_teacher]

This is a tough one.
The shadow detail is hidden is lost... or at least I can't find it. What is left is all compressed tonally and posterizes when expanded.
This is the best I can do with a potentially lovely family portrait.

BTW Very nice paintings in the background of the OP's head shot.

 

[Gwah & Sifu]

Hi there TBC, Thank you for your attempt, I thought it was a bit of an ask. but was worth a try at least. You did better than I could ever have done but Unfortunately there's too many inconsistencies and it doesn't look natural. Just one of those moments where it's not meant to be I guess, I will have to get a new photo taken with my granddaughter next time I see her. As for pics in the background, thank you I painted them myself Have an awesome week.

 

[Babine]

 

[ex_teacher]

Gary

This is an amazing job; especially given what you had to work with. I'm seriously impressed.

 

[Babine]

This is an amazing job, given what you had to work with. I'm seriously impressed.

Thanks. Appreciated.
It did take a fair amount of 'tweeking'. :^)

 

[ex_teacher]

Thanks. Appreciated.
It did take a fair amount of 'tweeking'. :^)

"fair amount" ...LOL

I can't duplicate the quality of your work but I did take the liberty of using your excellent job to modify areas of concern that I originally came across. I just couldn't get to the stage where it was workable

Mainly In any version) I didn't like the severe blown out background, the blotchy child's skin and the mouth that was lost in shadow ( I grossly overworked what I had). With your more subtle and elegant image I could at least attempt to rectify those areas...for good or ill. When pulled out of the shadow the mouth is a globular mess when viewed with any scrutiny. I primarily worked on that but it's not particularly obvious I think. One really needs to sandwich the two, magnify at 100% and A & B them to see all the changes.

 

[ex_teacher]

Ouch.... I posted the modified version without the (shadow) curves layer activated.

 

[thebestcpu]

Well I am impressed by both @Babine attempts and @ex_teacher 's attempts.
I could not get anywhere close to either of those.

I too took the liberty of starting with Babines exellent work and tried an apaproach to reduce the saturation of the subjects, even out the just a bit on the granddaugther and redeced texture selectively in the baces while keeping the background saturation and reducting the highlights just a bit.
I think a total B&W version looks pretty good as well to consider.
Here is the result.
Just a small tweak on what the masters have already done
John Wheeler

ADDED Edit - left out temperature adjustment so change image