Where do I start???

[brad9m]

Ok, First off, I want to say that I am a weekend photoshop warrior. I am amazed by some of the great things I have seen put together on this forum. I have a friend who lost her mom and she has very few pictures of her mother. The picture below is one of them. I spent about an hour working with it last night, but I just can't get the skin tones to look right. Everything looks splotchy. I appreciate in advance any suggestions. I realize that my after picture looks much like a before, but I am trying to learn how it all works. (It feels like an uphill battle).

Here is what I did. First, I got rid of the water spots. Then I tried to restore some of the missing background pattern. I separated parts of the picture into layers. I used the "Match" to try to fix the skin tones. I created two mask layers to try to recreate some hair and made them two different tones. And that left me with what I have now.

Thanks,

Brad

Before:


After:

 

[iDad]

Have you tried the dodge or burn toosl> I think you'll be able to pull some more definition out with those

 

[brad9m]

I did use the dodge and burn tools some. I used burn to enhance the arm lines. I used dodge on the face some, but the more I used it, the more it created an orange appearance on the face and left shoulder.

If you know of any tuts I could check out, I'd be much obliged.

 

[iDad]

have you tried lowering the exposure levels on it as to not increase to much with one click?

 

[iDad]

the resolution is pretty poor is that the best you have?

 

[brad9m]

I had the exposure set low, but I think the problem is that I had the mode set to highlight. Setting it to midtones seemed to help. Thanks!

I am still waiting on a higher resolution photo from her. This is the best I have to work with for now though.

 

[iDad]

btw try a few different layer modes on top layer it may pull out some wanted changes

 

[brad9m]

Thanks for the idea. I'll try that also.