Post your favorite animal mug shot

[minoltaman]

[yfsm]

This is not a great quality picture but I really like it of Smacker. I tried to fix it but did not do a very good job. I lightened it up in PS.



Sorry !!! I messed up again!!!

[ugot2bkdng]

Try duplicating the background layer and then setting the blend to screen on the new layer. If this is not enough, repeat until you get the lightness you want. You can fine tune by reducing the opacity on the last layer you create. Then flatten the image.

This doesn't work on all images; but, it is a quick fix for a lot.

Thanks for sharing.

[darter02]

Another good trick for after doing that is to adjust the color balance. For photos that are too yellow from lamp light, I like to add a touch of blue a pinch of magenta and a smidge of cyan. I can help a bit but you'll need to play around with it a bit.

[minoltaman]

what the hell, might as well just take one of the big three auto level choices...all good

joke to some...tip to others

[yfsm]

Chuck, Darter and Don....Thnx for the tips.


I always try the "Big Three" first but this was a really difficult image to work!

I think I still have the orig. image and will try all three suggestions. Anyway I still love the shot .... what a set of jowls on that dog!!!!

[pstewart]

Yf, really cute pose! Auto adjustments won't help here since they work on both extremes, darkest and lightest, at the same time and increase contrast, the last thing you want in this case. You want to concentrate on lightening just the darks as a first step, then you can tweak the lighter tones as needed and blend the two. You can try Chuck's 2-layer screen mode suggestion...that often does the trick, especially if you erase away the too-light areas that result with a medium opacity large eraser brush before repeating the process.

Or you can separate the darks out and use brighten/screen/levels on that layer only. To do this, hit command+option+~ on a Mac or control+alt+~ on a PC. This selects the lightest half. Change it to darkest half with command/control+shift+i then hit command/control+j to make it a separate layer. Now you may brighten up that dark layer without affecting the lighter areas so much. Lower opacity and/or soften edges to blend if necessary.

Important: When you brighten dark areas, by whatever technique, you often get unpleasant blueness, so to avoid this do your brightening on a dupe layer set to luminosity mode. This will allow you to change the tones without affecting color.

I have a great plug in that does wonders for shadows, called Digital SHO Pro. Well worth the investment of $99. I don't think a day goes by that I haven't used it to tweak an image. I use it more than any other PS plug in and recommend it as a "must" for anyone processing photos.

EDIT: Sorry, I forgot the "shift" in "reversing the selection" keystrokes.
While I'm editing, I'll reply to the post which follows: If you try adjusting just the middle slider of levels, you will get lighter shadows, yes, but may also lighten too much of the surrounding area and may lose detail in both the shadows and fur areas. Curves adjustment would help of course, if you are really good/experienced with curves.

[minoltaman]

just nudge the middle slider pstewart...you know the deal

[minoltaman]

work the curves a little...you'll be all good. If not perfect, dodge and burn a pick from there. Quick easy and effective on snapshots


better yet pstewart, just post some examples of your work, she would appreciate that

you can use some usm on that dog too... bigtime

[pstewart]

I have edited my original post a bit. The change is noted as "EDIT."

Don, I believe I already have (maybe) a few examples of lightened shadows in my retouching gallery at http://www.pbase.com/pstewart/retouching ...not positive though. However, there are lots in the Retouching Challenges forum on my site, URL under my name. We also have some great shadow-lightening actions by Andrew B. See the Retouching Tutorials for those...I am pretty sure we linked his original posts in tutes. If not there, then look for his name as thread starter in Retouching Discussion.

[minoltaman]

Real authors of real photoshop books and the like hang at the site I mention below.

go there for the best retouching info on the planet, bar none, they can do anything you want there, anything

http://www.retouchpro.com

[pstewart]

Here ya go, Jean...find this image in our retouching challenges, called "shadowy grad"...I think there are details of the process posted there.

http://www.pbase.com/image/23379086

[minoltaman]

you can also just run your pix/snaps through auto engines on the web, they will take care of business for you. Automatically, you can find those such tools and links at http://www.retouchpro.com

[ugot2bkdng]

Wow Jean, with all this good advice, you can't go wrong.

Great thread.

[pstewart]

Just got a PM and found out that yfsm is Jean, one of my members...DO'H. You know you can send it to me for posting on our site if you like, Jean. Jean is well aware of the features of Retouchpro as well.

Which mug belongs to the real doggie?