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newb picture help.


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FastNOC

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Not exactly sure what to do here.

I have a photo I took of some family members. I want to clean this up and adjust it to look better, but honestly I don't even know where to start.

I have Photoshop cs5 and I'm pretty decent with graphic design, but put a picture in front of me and I am just stuck.

Could someone recommend some things that might make this look better? the picture is initially in raw format from a Canon t3i at about 5000px so it's a decent quality.

If I'm posting in the wrong forum please let me know.

thank you.

004.jpg
 
There is not that much you could do with it unless you want creative effects
I would do an exposure correction though
004.png

or go extreme with a bit of topaz lol
extrepe.jpg
 
Hi FastNOC, welcome to PSG.

A similar question just came up and here is a link; you'll probably find the advice applicable:
http://www.photoshopgurus.com/forum...whats-best-easiest-way-spruce-up-picture.html

Your background is too busy and too vibrant. It overwhelms the subjects. It needs to be toned down or replaced. This would not be as difficult as it sounds. Because you could replace it all with that very neutral grey, you would only have to touch up in a few places after you select and delete the problem areas. You only have flyaway hair on the little girl but you don't have to deal with that if you keep the BG that same grey as you wouldn't have to delete anything behind her.

Good luck with this and if you have any more questions, come ask. Show us your final result OK? Hope this helps.
 
You ruined my sequence Clare lol.

The idea is to over expose a duplicate file and mask it off so you get a nice even look without loosing details.

and then flatten it for convenience over sharpen another duplicate of the flattened image and change the blending mode probably to something like luminosity fade the layer fill level and mask out sections but it is all personal preference you dont want to go as extreme as any of mine but find an amount you like.
 
I would tweak the exposure up a bit on that 1. And if I am honest if it was my picture I would put the effort into cleaning up the background. You just have to be careful and know do you want a studio look or a family home picture
 
Hoogle said:
You ruined my sequence Clare lol.
Click to expand...

Don't ya just hate when that happens!

I totally agree about knowing whether you want a studio or family den photo result. I was going to say something similar, especially when it comes to what method you end up using. Mine is pretty simple, but would need a few more treatments to pass as studio quality. Well, let us know if we're taking you in any direction you want to go, lol.
 
Last edited:
wow some great answers and suggestions. I think i get it.

if it's not a royal pain for you i'll make some edits taking into consideration what you're saying (all of you) and post results with a slightly bigger pic.

Thanks a ton!
 
Always better when the OP takes charge and comes back with a reply and even better when they come back with there own version, can't wait.
 
yeah, well it's a little embarrassing posting this. I want to make it look nice but this just looks awful. I couldn't get the skin tones to be close to the background, so I put a gradient overlay on it using orange to gold. then lightened it.

it's shocking how different photos are than graphics.

Plus i'm not very good at cutting out the background. it just looks so phonyii.jpg
 
you may be able to fix that in ACR with a white balance correction background is daylight the people are tungsten lighting.
 
Adobe Camera Raw you can access it from Adobe Bridge by right clicking any image and saying open up in camera raw. There is an icon that looks like the colour picker tool in photoshop but this is called white balance tool in ACR you want to hover it around your image until the RGB charts show numbers that are as close to each other as possible. For example
R74
G79
B68

they will be closer towards neutral colours ie 50% grey or you can choose 1 of the white balance presets.
 
Good advice Hoog. I would take off the gradient overlay first. You can always add a warming photo filter effect (under adjustments) afterwards. My suggestion about the background would be to blur it a bit. I don't think it looks bad. It's a nice choice IMO.

One other thing you could consider would be to make a layer above and with a soft brush and low opacity, sample a shadow on one of the bodies, and paint some soft shadows so they blend in better. Build up slowly. Erase if necessary with same kind of eraser brush. Brush and erase can create a nice gradient effect, like white and black on a mask.
 
If you continue to have difficulty, upload your psd so we can experiment with it. No pat answers. Of course I say that as I get ready to go to bed . . .

Another little detail: on the lady in grey -- who looks like the asst. ADA on Law & Order -- notice the grey wall showing through her hair. I'd suggest you just clone that out.
 
i'll work on your suggestions but if someone wants to show me what to do in an example sure I'd love to see that.

here's a link to the original jpg. not a psd, but psd's have a LOT of info and are what? 8 times bigger?

This is about 7mb

EDIT: wups need one more post before i post a link :)
 

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