Colored skin and Removing Shadows

mochabean

I just got a photo edit job from another photographer. Wants very dark shadows across neck and face removed from African American subject. I use Photoshop CS3, am proficient but struggling to remove these extreme tonal variations in color. Curves helps in some areas and cloaning just loses the skin textures. Anyone know how? Is there a good tutorial? I've searched but not found.

Help...I am really frustrated.

Wendy

mochabean

No One Has an Answer?
Hi Again All. I posted thread about removing shadows from African American suubject. 50 people read, though no one answered? Is this a dumb question or is it no one knows how to do or knows of any tutorials?

Is there a better place to post this question? I do really need some help!

Wendy

Andy

New thread not needed, you should 'bump' this thread. I did it for you. Link the photos so we can see - can't help much without seeing the pics

mochabean

Thanks! You are the MAN, the GURU.....Do you have any suggestions?
Wendy

pathfinder

Wendy,
Without seeing a few of the pictures I doubt this thread will receive many responses.

From my own experience, removing dense shadows from mottled lighting on the face is almost impossible to do well, no matter the color of the subjects skin. They can be less saturated, but removed is very tough.

This is an image I shot of my niece and her husband. If anyone can tell me how to remove the shadow over her left eye, I would be thrilled also. ( Backlit by sunlight, with fill flash from the subjects left front )



Is this the kind of shadow you are talking about?

jfriend

mochabean wrote:

I just got a photo edit job from another photographer. Wants very dark shadows across neck and face removed from African American subject. I use Photoshop CS3, am proficient but struggling to remove these extreme tonal variations in color. Curves helps in some areas and cloaning just loses the skin textures. Anyone know how? Is there a good tutorial? I've searched but not found.

Help...I am really frustrated.

Wendy

Show us the image and you'll get some comments. Without seeing the image, we have no idea what might work.

digismile

pathfinder wrote:

Wendy,
Without seeing a few of the pictures I doubt this thread will receive many responses.

From my own experience, removing dense shadows from mottled lighting on the face is almost impossible to do well, no matter the color of the subjects skin. They can be less saturated, but removed is very tough.

This is an image I shot of my niece and her husband. If anyone can tell me how to remove the shadow over her left eye, I would be thrilled also. ( Backlit by sunlight, with fill flash from the subjects left front )



Is this the kind of shadow you are talking about?

Hey PF,

I tried a few different techniques to try to fix this. The issue really is the hard shadow along the face, arm, and shirt. If we just concentrate on the woman's face, here are the various ways I attacked it:

1. Make a (square) selection from the bridge of her nose over her right eye. Copy it to a new layer and flip it horizontally. You then have quite a bit of image that can be used to patch the face. The issue with this is mostly the difference in hair line. Various blending modes can be used to make the eye look perfect, but the transition to the hair will take more work. I put this method aside and moved to another ...

2. I haven't done this in awhile, but I remembered a "fill flash" technique that I have previously used, found in Katrin Eismann's Photoshop Restoration & Retouching. This method took me about 5 minutes (well, 15, because I had to find the book first). The premise of the technique is to create an inverted grayscale mask that is then used to select and Color Dodge the original. As this technique is designed to bring out the shadows throughout the image, I further masked the image to just the face.

The basic steps to do this are:
- Duplicate the original image (Image>Duplicate)
- Turn it to grayscale (Image>Mode>grayscale)
- Blur the image to soften the edges (Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur). I used somewhere between 3-5. Your higher resolution original might need 6-10.
- Invert the image (Image>Adjust>invert or Ctrl-I, Cmd-I)
- Go back to the original Image and choose Selection>Load Selection. For the Source Document, use the pulldown menu and select your inverted grayscale image. Click OK
- You now have a funky looking selection on your original image. Now create a new layer based on the selection (Ctrl-J or Cmd-J)
- with the selection still active, use the fill dialog box to fill this new layer. (Edit>Fill). For the Contents pulldown, select 50% gray. For the Mode pulldown, select Color Dodge.

You now have an image that has been lightened everywhere. At this point, I added a layer mask to lighten just the eye area. Even with this, the shadow edge is still very hard. So at this point, simply merge the original layer and the the new lightened (and masked layer into a new layer). Ctrl-Alt-Shft-E or Layer>Merge Visible.

At this point, you're going to need to use some combination of the the Patch tool/Healing Brush and the Clone Stamp tool. I used the Patch tool and the healing brush to grab good detail from the right side of the face and fix the left side. I used the clone stamp tool (set for a low flow rate of 25-30%) to soften the transition of the shadow edge.

I literally did this in just a few minutes, so if you were to spend more time, I'm sure you can make this perfect. The issue is whether to treat the shadow on the blouse, shirt and arm in a similar way, or simply to fix the facial area.

pathfinder

Brad, I am quite impressed, I really thought that hard line of shadow would be impossible to really hide. I'll have to give this a try - I'll bet I spend a lot more than five minutes though.

Thank you again!

digismile

pathfinder wrote:

Brad, I am quite impressed, I really thought that hard line of shadow would be impossible to really hide. I'll have to give this a try - I'll bet I spend a lot more than five minutes though.

Thank you again!

Trust me, it won't be that hard . But PM me if you want some help.

ziggy53

In a similar, but even more extreme, situation I had a bride hiding in the shadow of the fiance/groom:



I used a separate layer and mask to work on just the deep shaded area of the bride's face and wound up with this, after cropping:



Way more than a 5 minute fix I'm afraid.

Duffy Pratt

That fix is very impressive as far as it goes. The trouble now is that the guy has a shadow of his chin that is cast on his shirt, but that shadow miraculously disappears wherever it might touch her face. The result is very unnatural looking to me. So, if I were going to attempt this, I'd probably try to do something about the shirt shadow as well, and I think that might even be harder.

Duffy

mochabean

How to 'bump' a thread?
Please tell me how to bump a thread. There is an existing thread from several days ago and I want to add images to renew discussion. I had to go out of town and couldn't stay with the trhread.
Thanks Much!
Wendy

Andy

mochabean wrote:

Please tell me how to bump a thread. There is an existing thread from several days ago and I want to add images to renew discussion. I had to go out of town and couldn't stay with the trhread.
Thanks Much!
Wendy

You just did. Replying to it, saying "bump"
Add content, new replies, images, etc as needed.

mochabean

Images in question. Thank you so far for your comments. I will incorporate those suggestions. These photos may shed some light or not (nee hee) on what I am facing. See what you think!
Wendy