Can this photo be saved?

~Jan~

I think it's adorable, but because the girls were in the shade and there was sun on the sand in the background, the background is totally blown. I tried a b/w conversion, because I think it's a b/w type of shot, but it's not really any better. I tried burning the background, but it looked really fake. I'm so mad at myself for not correctly exposing the shot. Here's my b/w conversion:

pyrtek

Yes, it can be saved. You can simply change the background. Here's a
halfhearted attempt (halfhearted, because it's difficult to create a good
mask having such a small source image to work with). It's not meant as
a solution, rather as proof that it's doable.

~Jan~

Wow, how did you do that? Whenever I try to change backgrounds, it looks really fake, esp. around the hair. I'm impressed w/ what you did w/ a low-quality version of the photo.

pyrtek

"Wow" is quite out of place in this case. This is quite a hack compared to
what's possible with a higher resolution source. I just used the "most
contrasty channel as the basis of the mask" technique. Here's a
tutorial that explains it better than I could. Once I had the mask I loaded it
as a selection, ran Filter->Other->Maximum with a value of 1 and inverted the
selection. In effect, I had the background selected. Once you have that
selection active you can change it with a different picture by issuing
Edit->Paste Into (after copying another image to the clipboard, of course).

ziggy53

Is this maybe closer to what you were thinking? Almost entirely in PS "Shadows" adjustments, cropped to 7x5 to improve the intimacy of the moment, a little extra Saturation and some USM.

Cuties02q

Very cute picture...I really like what you did to it Ziggy!!!

Zanotti

Cute shot! Better?

manta1900

Tough to keep it "real"
Best I could do with info left in the image....

a-tx-brit

My try
New to this, just changed white balance with Helicon Filter.

LiquidAir

~Jan~ wrote:

I'm so mad at myself for not correctly exposing the shot.

I given the framing and the light you had, there wasn't a lot you could do. It is almost never worthwhile underexposing your subject by more than a stop to save an uninteresting background. Given the choices you had, I would have set both my exposure and my white balance for the shade and let the background do what it will.

Personally, what I think the real issue is here is that you can't see either the girls faces or what they are looking at so the shot lacks a center of focus. A beautiful beach scene or a sunset might fill that void, but nothing you can do to the sand will really help. To that end, pyrtek is on the right track. Do you have any scenics from the same location you can use as a background? That said, dropping in a different background is likely still missing the point of what you were trying to achieve when you took the shot.

Here is something to remember: the difference in exposure between direct sun and shade usually at least 3 stops and often more. Given that modern digital typically have dynamic range of about 8 stops, mixed sun and shade is always going to sacrifice detail in one or the other. Usually when working in mixed light I use a flash to bring the shadow exposure up closer to the background (this is called fill flash). Here is an example:



Miles is in the shade so I have used a flash to kick him up a couple stops to closer match the sunlit background. Even so, I have still let the sunlit path in the background blow out a bit. In this case I set everything up manually but most modern cameras will handle fill flash automatically in many situations.

RogersDA

So I tried, too.

~Jan~

Thanks for your help, everyone! I will play around and see what I can do. You know what they were doing? Whispering mean things about two other little kids at playgroup. So, not exactly an intimate moment but more one of 4-year-old-girl snottiness. I still thought it was cute the way their heads were together, but you are right, it lacks something.

rundadar

I'll offer an altogether different take...
While I enjoy seeing what some people cand do in Photoshop, here's what I think:

If you think it would have been a memorable shot with the background NOT blown - just keep it - the background is not important anyway - this shot is not about art - it's about memories.

If you think the shot is not good enough to serve as a memory - well, blown background or not, fill-flash or not - won't be any good, will it?

ShannonHeat

This is my FAVORITE! Great job!

RogersDA wrote:

So I tried, too.