Favorite Photo from Quebec

[Kwallamong]

I took this years ago wwhile in Quebec on vacation. It has always been a favorite..there's something about the cashier's look. I'm looking for some suggestions to help me fix it. I haven't really been able to do much (I'm still a PSE beginner) witht the lighting. When I try to lighten the foreground the ceiling is washing out. I'm sure some of you must know a way to fix it. I'd also be interested in any other suggestions for overall improvement. Thanks.

www.pixentral.com/show.php?pic=1jhCM9d8lVbETFOOiPmuJgFcGLoFi

[budguinn]

This was about as good as I could get it........just a bunch of cloning......this was apparently a scanned image....there was lots of dust and stuff on the image...also alot of jpeg artifacts.....I removed these as best as I could....color corrected....attempted to get some more natural tones to the cashiers face....some noise reduction....then a light sharpening to some selected areas.



I hope this helps you

[Kwallamong]

Thank you. I'm assuming you used PS. How did you do it?

[budguinn]

Originally posted by Kwallamong
Thank you. I'm assuming you used PS. How did you do it?

As I stated above:

".just a bunch of cloning......this was apparently a scanned image....there was lots of dust and stuff on the image...also alot of jpeg artifacts.....I removed these as best as I could....color corrected....attempted to get some more natural tones to the cashiers face....some noise reduction....then a light sharpening to some selected areas."

There is no here is how you do this to every image.....in this particular image there was so much noise and distortion from the jpeg compression ..as well as noise from apparently a scanned image it had to be dealt with first. I used a few layers of Neat Image....I always work in layers and then use a mask to bring back any detail that may be lost from the Neat Image noise reduction.
I then white balance corrected using auto levels and then curves.
I then color corrected.....this left a bluish cast on the cashiers jaw line and neck.....I use the clone tool in "color" mode to bring the color back to this area....from her forehead.

Once I got everything pretty close, I used a two layer sharpening technique.......with the sharpening done to the lower layer.....upper layer is then changed to a mask and the sharpening is selectively applied....mainly just to the cashiers face....eyes, nose, mouth.....this was because your stated interest was her look.

Again, this photo was really very poor...I showed my wife what I was starting with and she didn't think I should bother....but again it was one of your favorites and a good challenge. When you zoom in on the original you can see ugly compression artifacts almost everywhere....I cloned these out as best I could.....again I mainly focused on the cashier and her general area. I also tried to soften the background just a bit.....seemed to bright for the foreground.

There are many good tutorials available on the web....just run a google search on "photoshop tutorials" and they will give excellent help. This could have been done in any of the PS versions from 5.5 up. It also can be done in almost any version of Elements......you don't have "curves" in Elements....unless you add it, but everything else can be done.

Thanks for the interesting challenge, and I agree that the expression is quite nice.

bud

[ChronosIII]

This is my effort with your image. I used PS 7.0

I can't really go into detail as to how I did it all, but the steps I took were these:
1. Levels adjustment
2. Curves layer to lighten F.G then masked out B.G.
3. Curves layer to Darken B.G. then masked out F.G
4. Manipulated White Balance to remove tungsten cast
5. Dust and scratches removed on layer and masked
6. Resized for this posting then added Unsharp layer

Now this may sound like a lot of work but once you get proficient with your software it will
be easy. I made the changes faster than it took me to type this message.

Good luck, I think PSE 3 is a very good program to learn on and you can do everything I just
did with it, the most important thing in my opinion is to learn how to use layers for adjustments.

Dave Strain

[AndyUK]

Cool shot; only suggestion might be to crop a fraction more --- that bright white light up top is a tad distracting.

[Iricka]

Her look says.

"please take me out of here"