poor quality photo?

[sandik17]

I have this image that I need to 'do something with'...but I think the quality of the original photo is not so good? I don't know enough about this to 'fix' it. I was thinking of doing selective colouring...ie hat and shirts...but the original colour is poor. If I make the image smaller (in the editor) would that help the image...what about the canvas size?
Can anyone help with that please. It's for my dear friend to give to her husband for their 10th anniversary?


http://www.pixcentral.com/images/184124louise.jpg

[kayser]

Hi Sandi- I think you could do a lot just by cropping and fixing the redeye. You could also do a levels adjustment.

You could also consider selecting them out and putting them on a different background or cloning out distracting stuff in the background once you've cropped.

[sandik17]

Automatic red eye didn't work...would I manually go in and change it to black?

Good idea about the cropping and background
thanks

[kayser]

Here's an earlier suggestion from Wendy:

Hi Ted ...

I don't use the red eye tool I tend to do it manually ... here is what I do:

Zoom in very close and select the red area plus a few pixels beyound it ... feather a little. (you have to experiment but try 1 or 2).
Then copy it to a new layer Edit>Copy then Edit>Paste
Enhance>Colour>Hue & Sat ... select red from the edit box and reduce saturation to zero or thereabouts
Enhance>Brightness & Contrast>Levels .. move the left hand marker in about a third of the way and move the centre marker over to the right until the area goes dark ... not too far or it will look artificial.


Wendy

And then Diana's method:

I have been using PSE 3.0 and most recently 5.0 and I, too, have found that the Red Eye Removal Tool replaces the red with blue.....to bad if the person had brown eyes!

I manually replace the color.....on a separate layer I zoom in and make a selection of the iris, add a 1 px feather, and fill it with the color I want, then do the same for the pupil. Then I add the catch light back in if needed with a couple daubs of off-white. Then I apply a low Noise filter and then a low Guassian Blur to take away that solid color look and to soften it.

This probably wouldn't be feasible if you have a large group of people in the photo with red eye.

I've also used this method for fixing dogs' eyes with the color blown out by the flash.

I have been doing photo restoration and making DVD slideshows for anniversary celebrations, etc. and a lot of times need to restore eyes that just don't have enough color left in them to use Wendy's method. Here's an example of a portion of a wedding photo I was just working on:

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1j4nyOIFm9J6pLBg3sNY0mExHv_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1j4nyOIFm9J6pLBg3sNY0mExHv)

Diana

[Juergen D]

Sandi,
Select the eyes and then use Hue/Sat to reduce the red saturation. Cropping in will definitely help.

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1ZMOyYGIAT3NTgaaFTXqbeND6lk7j1_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1ZMOyYGIAT3NTgaaFTXqbeND6lk7j1)

Juergen

[Rusty]

Sandra, to do something with the color, try a levels adjustment.

Enhance > Adjust Lighting > Levels

When you get there, do not use the "total view" (the "RGB view"). Use the drop down and adjust each of the individual channels Red, Green and Blue.

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1tGaHEKyauOBgnMkYOcM8aLyfSewq0_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1tGaHEKyauOBgnMkYOcM8aLyfSewq0)

I always try this first before screwing around with adjusting color. I ignored the Red Eye 'cause others have discussed that.

Rusty