Man do I need help.. oh boy

[GemGem]

Hi!

Really hope someone can help me fix this pic. I ventured out using an shot through umbrella. Of course, I practice like 4x's before going "live" all in different situations around my house. However today, not so good. I set the exposure on the flash, it looked fine in the view finder, but when I get home.. I found this :(. First, the blue bground didn't work well, second, well, the obvious.. Here is my attempt at changing the bground color and the exposure.. Any tips will be GREATLY appreciated :)


1. http://anagiltaylorphotography.smugmug.com/photos/621861947_ZcLsZ-M.jpg
2. http://anagiltaylorphotography.smugmug.com/photos/621861769_fnZkB-M.jpg
Thanks!
GG

[bmoreshooter]

On my monitor your photos appear to be oversaturated. Which also gives them a magenta color cast. Changing the background will be easy once you get the sat and color balance correct. Your photo is salvagable.

[GemGem]

On my monitor your photos appear to be oversaturated. Which also gives them a magenta color cast. Changing the background will be easy once you get the sat and color balance correct. Your photo is salvagable.

Thank you! OMG... I was practicing with vivid mode the day before.. I realized I didn't change it after we went outside and I tried to change the ISO. :cry

So what techniques do you suggest for removing the background. I changed it from blue to white, but her hair looks well... like I changed the background..

Thanks bmoreshooter!
GG

[ziggy53]

Here's my take on it:

Background removal using Andy's tutorial, except that I created a new layer from the selection and worked on that layer, reducing the color saturation to turn it into a gray.

http://www.dgrin.com/showpost.php?p=46354&postcount=1

After the background was in a new layer I applied a graduated overlay.

Now I worked on the people, reducing the saturation, reducing red saturation a bit more.

Then I created an overlay using an Inverted image and Soft Light blend, reducing the Opacity and Fill to suite.

Then I worked a bit on the shiny areas of the woman and man, creating colored overlay selections and blending them into the image.

I wound up with this (which I will remove at your request):

(ziggy edit to remove image)

[GemGem]

[QUOTE=ziggy53]Here's my take on it:

Ziggy53, this is great! I love how you had managed to keep the details at the edge of her hair.
I definitely like it. I am going to work on it to get the bground to white.
I am interested in learning more about this technique

"Then I worked a bit on the shiny areas of the woman and man, creating colored overlay selections and blending them into the image." Is there a tutorial on this technique here at Dgrin?

Thank you so much Ziggy53 for taking time to help me out :)
GG

[ziggy53]

[QUOTE=ziggy53]... I am interested in learning more about this technique

"Then I worked a bit on the shiny areas of the woman and man, creating colored overlay selections and blending them into the image." Is there a tutorial on this technique here at Dgrin?

...

I use a variation of the technique in the following link:

http://creativetechs.com/tipsblog/quick-skin-tone-retouching-in-photoshop/

This would normally also be followed by some hand blending using the Clone Tool once the correction overlay is merged with the face/skin.

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Regarding your wish to have a white background, you will also probably need to use the Dodge Tool on the hair edges in order to make it work with a pure white background. It will be tricky so take your time using a very low exposure setting on just the rim of each person's hair. (At least I think this will help in that it has helped in some of my images before.)

[adbsgicom]

[quote=GemGem]

I use a variation of the technique in the following link:

http://creativetechs.com/tipsblog/quick-skin-tone-retouching-in-photoshop/

This would normally also be followed by some hand blending using the Clone Tool once the correction overlay is merged with the face/skin.



Thanks for the pointer. I was trying to fix a similar problem with the patch tool and running into problems where it seemed to be overthinking the blending. I'll see if this gets me what I want.

[bmoreshooter]

A real simple way to do this would be, get the faces the correct color and intensity. Next, in the box for foreground and background color in the tool selection choose a medium blue foreground and a white background. Select the background with the magic wand tool and then select the filter for making clouds. This is a very basic way of doing things but it works. If you don't like the blue experiment with others.

[GemGem]

Ziggy, thank you! those techniques are GREAT!
bmoreshooter, I will experiment with your technique as well. You are all great! thank you.!
GG