Diamond in the Rough
Please review the tutorial on saving
and pre-sharpening your images first if you have not
already.
Every now and then you take a photo that has incredible
potential if only the light was better or the background
was nicer or whatever.
In this installment of the Digital Darkroom, lets look
at a common photo with the potential to become a real gem
with a little cut and polish.
Here is the original image with all the problems of a
flash photo “shot from the hip”. fig.1
First lets identify the main areas that need work. Removing
the extra image by cropping helps to bring the focus to
the subject. Next by using the clone tool and the quick
mask tool we can isolate the subject from the background
and the foreground elements. fig.2
Now we are free to replace the background with something
less distracting and more appealing. I created an abstract
background for this example with some gradients and filters
(details on abstracts will follow in later chapters).
Now its time to work on the subject, 1st use the dodge
tool set to “shadow” in several passes lighten
the hard shadow under the right forearm, finish with the
clone tool to replace the pink pattern where the shadow
was removed. Using the “Render Lighting Effects” filter
and “Brightness Contrast tools the subject is re-lighted
to accent her face and bring the total gamma in line with
the background. A slight color correction dilutes the warm
colors of the other adjustments returning the girl to a
natural color.
Finally the red eye is removed from the left eye and the image transformation
is complete. fig.3
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