Need a little help with this picture

[blevens2011]

I have this picture its from a friend he asked me if i might be able to fix it for him and i tried but had no luck if someone could tell me if it is possible and if so how to do it thank you for any help

 

[ALB68]

I've seen quite a few images before but this one is running close to the top of the heap for bad. The side of the house and background is all blown out. It is a very small photo and poor resolution. Maybe someone with more expertise than me can fix it.

 

[Tom Mann]

Larry, ALB, pretty much summarized the situation. Basically, one can darken the image, but the results likely won't satisfy u. For example, I used Tiffen's DFX on my iPhone to come up with the following.

T

 

[ALB68]

This is about the best I could do with it. It is very small and blown out.

 

[Paul]

That original image looks reworked to me, which raises the question of why make it so badly to then ask for it to be made 'good/normal' again?

 

[ALB68]

Yeah I was wondering what happened to it.

That original image looks reworked to me, which raises the question of why make it so badly to then ask for it to be made 'good/normal' again?

 

[Tom Mann]

Ditto. Me too.

 

[Lumpsack]

Hi,

This is the best I can do - too much is blown out and what colour remained was a distraction so I though it best to remove it.

I'm guessing it must have been reworked too - no program listed in the exif, but it would have to be a very sunny day to blow it out that much at 1/500 sec even at f2.8, although flash was used.

 

[Hoogle]

Like anything in photoshop it can be possible depending on how you define fix. It is very unlikely you will get a true colour representation of how it was taken same with detail. But if you do levels and a balck and white adjustment layer you can bring back a lot of detail as shown above. But then the rest is down to you on how patient you are and you level of painting and recolouring using photoshop.

I gave up after about 10 mins work but without spending any particular amount of effort into this this is an example of recolouring, once you have the black and white detail as best as you can then go on youtube and search for colouring in a black and white photo in photoshop.

And then it may look good on your screen but I am guessing like this will by the time you save it and upload it to web as an example it will still look horrible. So ask your friend what is the intended usage of this picture and how much time are you willing to put into this for them. and then decide is it really worth it.



and yes as predicted as soon as you upload it anywhere the quality gets totally lowered so once you have done it you will then need to clone out on places like the girls left arm with the black pixels etc and smooth it out more but then that all comes back to the question how much time are you prepared to put into an image and is it really worth it.

 

[Lumpsack]

I know what you mean - the thing the forum does to squish it to size ready exaggerates the sharpening.

 

[ALB68]

That's very nice but my effort was to work with what was there . I considered the b w also but wanted to see what I could bring back without a major restoration. Where is the OP ?

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk 2

 

[iDad]

Crap in usually means crap out as demonstrated:mrgreen:

 

[ALB68]

Crap in usually means crap out as demonstrated:mrgreen:

Hear hear!

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk 2

 

[chrisdesign]

This is the best I could do to save this Picture...
...but too much time invested, that's the reason I put a watermark on it.

 

[prd]

This is the best I could do to save this Picture...
...but too much time invested, that's the reason I put a watermark on it.

View attachment 33868

really cool man

 

[un.imaginative.boy]

here's my try

 

[prd]

This is the best I could do to save this Picture...
...but too much time invested, that's the reason I put a watermark on it.

View attachment 33868

how do you do that, can you tell us step by step.

 

[Tom Mann]

PRD, Chris undoubtedly used many, many steps, and the exact process he used for this image won't be the same as what you would use on another image. In addition, even if the exact same process could be used on different images, your "step by step" request is essentially asking him to do a lot of work for you for free.

He may be willing to do this, but, instead, I suggest you should start by Googling {photoshop colorization tutorial}, view some of the hits produced by that search and then ask for help on smaller, individual parts of the process that may be giving you problems.

Tom M

 

[prd]

hi tom,
i tried this one and got result similar to ALB68 results that's why i was not posted here. i know the common technique of colorization but here he did some unique work so i am asking him for his technique, he is very new here but he is very experienced and talented PSD dude.

 

[chrisdesign]

how do you do that, can you tell us step by step.

It is difficult to explain in English, as I'm german speaking my Photoshop is a german version, so excuse me for that. But I give it a try.

1. Step.: I duplicated the layer of the original picture, set it on multiply. This new layer I duplicated 3 times. The result is a much stronger picture, which then I reduced to 1 layer.

2. Step: I reduced it to a BW image, then changed it back into RGB. I optimised the BW image with gradation curves to set the Light, Midtones and Black.

3.Step: This BW image i put through a Topaz filter (De Noise) to reduce noise, it looks now very soft. Then I applied Topaz(Adjust),Topaz(Detail) and Topaz(Clean). This is very difficult, because all topaz presets are to extreme for professional use. A lot of experience is needed. The result is smoother skin tones but better details in hairs and eyes.

4. Step: Create a Color image.
From this BW image (RGB) I use the masking tool to make a new layer for hairs, skin tones and dog. With gradation curves I adjust the curve in each channel separately to get a tan color.(See screenshot) Final adjustments with color corrections. With a brush I work on the layermask to soften the edges.





5.Step: I make a new layer for jeans, sky, wall, T-shirt orange, T-shirt pink, Green lawn, dogseat. I always work with gradation curves in each channel first, then if necessary i apply color corrections. Sometimes these layers are applied normal, sometimes even multiplied.



6.Step: I lean back in my chair, the time is past midnight, I see that I worked on this image for 4 hours. I liked how it looks, so I post it to the forum, and call it a day!