Complete beginners question

TR
Posted By
Tim_r_Donald
Jan 8, 2004
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429
Replies
17
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Closed
I have down loaded the try out version of Photoshop Elements 2.0 for use on windows.

My problem is I have a great photo of my daughter, but it is take indoors towards a window, so she is very dark in the photo.
Using contrast adjustment on the whole photo does not really work. Can I split the photo into layers to change the contrast on the layers separately? If so, how do I go about that?
There is plenty of stuff in HELP on how to use layers but nothing on how to develop them in the first place. Any help getting started would be greatly appreciated.
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J
jhjl1
Jan 8, 2004
You might try making a selection of the darker areas (daughter) and applying a levels adjustment to the selection only.

—
Have A Nice Day, 🙂
James Hutchinson
http://www.pbase.com/myeyesview
wrote in message
I have down loaded the try out version of Photoshop Elements 2.0 for
use on windows.
My problem is I have a great photo of my daughter, but it is take
indoors towards a window, so she is very dark in the photo.
Using contrast adjustment on the whole photo does not really work. Can I split the photo into layers to change the contrast on the layers
separately? If so, how do I go about that?
There is plenty of stuff in HELP on how to use layers but nothing on
how to develop them in the first place. Any help getting started would be greatly appreciated.
JG
JR Gardiner
Jan 8, 2004
You have several choices. You can create a separate layer (right click the background layer and select
duplicate layer) or you can work on just the dark area. To do that, you will need to select the area
(using any of the selection tools – marquee, lasso, etc.). Once you have the dark area isolated, you
can adjust the contrast in that area only. Be sure to make a copy of the image before you start, just
in case. Hope that helps. If not repost and I’ll try to be more specific.

—
Regards,
John Gardiner

wrote in message
I have down loaded the try out version of Photoshop Elements 2.0 for use
on windows.
My problem is I have a great photo of my daughter, but it is take indoors
towards a window, so she is very dark in the photo.
Using contrast adjustment on the whole photo does not really work. Can I split the photo into layers to change the contrast on the layers
separately? If so, how do I go about that?
There is plenty of stuff in HELP on how to use layers but nothing on how
to develop them in the first place. Any help getting started would be greatly appreciated.
BB
Barbara_Brundage
Jan 8, 2004
Tim, go to the How to palette. It should be in your palette well, or you can bring up by choosing it in the Window menu. There’s a pulldown menu on it. Go to "fix color and brightness" and click "fix the exposure of a photo." It will walk you through the steps. Or you might try "lighten dark areas of a photo" if the whole photo doesn’t need adjustment.

There are other ways to do these things that are probably better, but if you are a newby the recipes are very helpful in finding your way around at first.
NS
Nancy_S
Jan 8, 2004
Tim,

See if just adding an Adjustment layer and moving the middle slider to the left works out. OR

Try adding a Levels Adjustment layer, don’t change anything, just OK it. Now change the mode in the palette from Normal to Screen. If the light areas are too light, double click the graph looking square in the pallete to bring it back up, see if moving the right most slider to the left a bit helps (using the bottom most set of sliders)

Nancy
MM
Michael Moody
Jan 8, 2004
I was faced with a similar situation earlier this week. I searched this ng and found the following solution. Open the file and make it as large (Ctrl +) as you can on the screen (really large & blurry if necessary)

Select the polygonal lasso tool and start dragging and clicking around the edge of your daughter’s face until you selected a complete, closed area.

Then select enhance, quick fix and fill flash. Adjust the slider until her face looks all right and save.

wrote in message
I have down loaded the try out version of Photoshop Elements 2.0 for use
on windows.
My problem is I have a great photo of my daughter, but it is take indoors
towards a window, so she is very dark in the photo.
Using contrast adjustment on the whole photo does not really work. Can I split the photo into layers to change the contrast on the layers
separately? If so, how do I go about that?
There is plenty of stuff in HELP on how to use layers but nothing on how
to develop them in the first place. Any help getting started would be greatly appreciated.
MR
Mark_Reibman
Jan 8, 2004
Try this and see if this techniques gives you good results. I don’t know if the Guassian blur is necessary. I got this technique recently on this forum from Chuck Snyder.

Duplicate Image Layer
Image>Adjustments>Invert
Enhance>Adjust Color>Remove Color
Gaussian Blur Filter at about 3
Change your blending mode to overlay.

That’s it.
CS
Chuck_Snyder
Jan 8, 2004
Mark, I think the blur prevents the image from being oversharpened and having color fringing/artifacts on the edges….need to go back and experiment some.
wrote in message
Try this and see if this techniques gives you good results. I don’t know
if the Guassian blur is necessary. I got this technique recently on this forum from Chuck Snyder.
Duplicate Image Layer
Image>Adjustments>Invert
Enhance>Adjust Color>Remove Color
Gaussian Blur Filter at about 3
Change your blending mode to overlay.

That’s it.
TR
Tim_r_Donald
Jan 9, 2004
Thanks for all the help guys.
James: That is what I thought I should try and do but can’t seem to get it done. Have tried drawing round her then edit>cut and then click on layer 1 and edit>paste, but nothing seems to happen. If you could let me know how to do it properly that would be great?

Also tried playing with the levels and contrast but the camera did the best job possible given the bad conditions I put it in.

Tried using Chuck’s method and could see the changes happening to the duplicate layer in the layers palette, but then do I nee to combine them to alter the original image or…?

Sorry for my ineptitude, but I guess everyone has to start somewhere.
F
fidelfernandez
Jan 9, 2004
Try to use the dodge tool.
JH
Jim_Hess
Jan 9, 2004
I have had some success using the Flash Fill option, but you have to be careful with it. It is a very "hot" tool, a little bit goes a long way. The way I use it is as follows:

Use the elliptical lasso tool to select the area that I want to adjust. Feather the selection by about five pixels.
Copy the selection and then paste it to its own layer.
Apply the flash fill and get it as close to what you want as possible. Adjust the opacity of the layer containing the face until you are satisfied with the results.

Anyway, I have used this technique a few times, and it works pretty well most of the time. If it doesn’t work for you, just delete the layer.
J
jhjl1
Jan 9, 2004
This is just one of many ways you can try.
1. Duplicate layer
2. Make selection of daughter on duplicate
3. Enhance>Adjust Brightness/Contrast>Levels You might try lighting adjustments also
4. Adjust opacity slider if necessary and or try different blending modes

—
Have A Nice Day, 🙂
James Hutchinson
http://www.pbase.com/myeyesview
JK
Jiri_Kriz
Jan 11, 2004
Tim,
try to get book 40 digital photo retouching techniques. It’s great book step by step how to do it with samples pictures on CD. On the CD is also trial version PE2. Cost just $17. I’m using now the trial and I wanna buy PE2. But some web sites offering "media only" version. I got not Idea what is diferent. Do you?
BH
Beth_Haney
Jan 11, 2004
I think "media only" means you don’t get the printed manual that comes with the full boxed version. Also watch how much you pay for it. Amazon is usually one of the best places to buy it.
MR
Mark_Reibman
Jan 11, 2004
Tim,

It would help if we could see your photo. If you don’t have a place to post it and would like to show it, click my name for my email address and send it to me and I will post it in my gallery (if you are comfortable with that) so others may have a look at it.

Given any image that has the problem you are referring to, there are several ways to correct the image. Some of these approaches work better in different situations. I purchased a shadow recovery program from fredmiranda.com that works very well, but sometimes other techniques work as well or better. And sometimes a combination of techniques is even better.
CR
Cater_Rent
Jan 13, 2004
I agree that seeing the photo might be helpful. And yes, there are probably a lot of ways to solve your problem.

Before you do anything, let me just remind you that when you change the lighting of just one area of a photo TOO much, it will look unnatural as it will not look correct in comparison to the rest of the photo. Either way, there are some solutions.

As for SELECTING the part of the photo you want to change, I like the Magic Wand tool. Click on an area and hold down the Shift key to keep selecting more areas. (Play around with that until you get the hang of it.) If for some reason that doesn’t work for you, try messing with the lasso tool.

There are a few ways to make that selection lighter or darker. Here are some things I do a lot…

Try the Dodge tool. You can adjust the size, exposure, etc. of this tool. Perhaps this is not what you want.

You might try Enhance > Adj. color > Color Variations > (Adj. color intensity perhaps) > Lighten

Also, you might want to try Enhance > Adj. Brightness/Contrast Levels > Note the 3 arrows under the black shapes/mountains. Ideally, the 2 outer arrows touch the edges of the black parts. You can try that or, you can also just move the center arrow around too. (I think the middle arrow=middle gray…can’t remember exactly).

Try those things. Even if it won’t help for this photo, it will come in handy sometime! Good luck!
TR
Tim_r_Donald
Jan 18, 2004
Mark, I did eventually get your technique to work by starting again. Maybe it doesn’t work on a .psd file? but certainly had no problem when I took the original jpeg image.I managed to get a reasonable result with it using the magic wand and cranking it right up to 220 to select pretty much everything apart form the very bright spots and adjusting the brightness and contrast slightly and then applying your technique.
It really is a trully awful photo(apart from my daughter of course) but that should make it a great image to work with as a tutorial for myself. Now I think I want to try and replace the images in the windows with a beach scene.The next excercise after that will be to try and just take mydaughter out and put her into a decent photo. Any ideas on the best way to do that? There is too much contrast for the magic wand to handle that one. Will have to start reading up on how to do that. I’ve only got 20 days left on my trial.
BH
Beth_Haney
Jan 18, 2004
TIM!!!!! If you’re working with pictures of your daughter, please don’t ever use the JPEG format for extensive editing! And most particularly NEVER work on your original photo. JPEG is a wonderful format for some things, but using it while editing is not one of them. What you are trying to accomplish can be done in either PSD or TIFF format. Both are lossless, and there will be no image degradation over time, like there will be when using JPEGs.

I haven’t reviewed this whole discussion, but I think you’ll want to use one of the selection tools – like the lasso or magnetic lasso – for selection of your daughter’s face. And you’ll want to do it on a copy. A copy that’s been converted! 🙂

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