Anyone know much about photo work?
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I have a picture of my wife that I'd like to fix up a bit. The lighting conditions aren't particularly good, with the left side of her face badly washed out. Does anyone know of any software tricks that can be used to mirror the color tone from the right side onto the left side? (Literally mirroring the right side wouldn't work, as her head's at an angle and she isn't looking straight-on into the camera.)
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@Mason_Wheeler Give Luminar a try? https://skylum.com/luminar
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@SirTwist Looks interesting, but it's a bit pricy and they don't appear to have a trial version.
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@Mason_Wheeler said in Anyone know much about photo work?:
they don't appear to have a trial version.
They do but it requires a deposit.
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Also, holy
if it does what it claims to do. They're living in year 3020.
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@error @Mason_Wheeler click on luminar 4 in the menu at the top and 4th item down is Download Trial.
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If you're extra cheap and like learning new things and hate even the thought of money leaving your wallet, go with GIMP.
The tool you're looking for is called "Levels", and it's particularly good for un-washing-out things. You can tweak the entire photo, a selection, or a feathered-edged selection (I know Photoshop does feathered-selections, but can't remember if GIMP does), and then change the levels so that that section of the photo looks less washed-out.
When fiddling with levels, there are three things to tweak: the white-point, the black-point, and the gray-point. Adjusting any of those will change colors across the entire photo/selection: so the blackest point on the photo can be made lighter or darker, and the rest of the photo will change proportionally. And you can change the whitest point, and the middle-gray point, similarly, and again, the rest of the colors will change proportionally. It's really good for adding more contrast to photos/sections that are washed out.
Or you could just adjust the contrast, but that's less tune-able.
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@PotatoEngineer said in Anyone know much about photo work?:
If you're extra cheap and like learning new things and hate even the thought of money leaving your wallet, go with GIMP.
The tool you're looking for is called "Levels", and it's particularly good for un-washing-out things. You can tweak the entire photo, a selection, or a feathered-edged selection (I know Photoshop does feathered-selections, but can't remember if GIMP does), and then change the levels so that that section of the photo looks less washed-out.
When fiddling with levels, there are three things to tweak: the white-point, the black-point, and the gray-point. Adjusting any of those will change colors across the entire photo/selection: so the blackest point on the photo can be made lighter or darker, and the rest of the photo will change proportionally. And you can change the whitest point, and the middle-gray point, similarly, and again, the rest of the colors will change proportionally. It's really good for adding more contrast to photos/sections that are washed out.
Or you could just adjust the contrast, but that's less tune-able.
Is it anything like "Levels" in Paint.net? Because I tried playing with that but it doesn't seem to do anything particularly useful. Maybe I just lack the necessary experience to use it well?
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@PotatoEngineer said in Anyone know much about photo work?:
know Photoshop does feathered-selections, but can't remember if GIMP does
It does, but I think the best approach is to duplicate a layer then use a layer mask to select which parts of it are actually used.
In addition, you can then play around with the opacity of the adjusted layer as a quick fix to how strong it affects the whole image.
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The link I posted above actually has an example of how to use masks for selective colorization.
 https://www.gimp.org/tutorials/Layer_Masks/#selective-colorization-example
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Case in point, here's me doing a quick test on some image I've just swiped off the interwebs (after searching for chiaroscuro):
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Btw, for washed out images, where the input levels don't reach the whole range, you can eyeball your adjustments based on the top histogram on the Levels dialog.
Set the left marker where your dark input levels start, set the right marker where your light input levels end. Adjust the mid marker as you see fit.
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@Zecc I actually understood what you did in the second one!
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@dkf Maybe my first video wasn't too clear.
Does this help (mistakes and all)?
Any redness thanks to f.lux. Any cropping of the right side of the video thanks to NodeBB.
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@Zecc said in Anyone know much about photo work?:
Maybe my first video wasn't too clear.
The video was clear, but my understanding of it was not. I can see what the individual steps do (mostly), but don't think to connect them together like how you do.
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@SirTwist said in Anyone know much about photo work?:
@error @Mason_Wheeler click on luminar 4 in the menu at the top and 4th item down is Download Trial.
Thanks, I missed that.
Interesting program, but no matter what I do with the tools it provides, I can't get it to balance the color brightness on her face. Most of the stuff that's specifically for portrait enhancement seems to be geared towards making things brighter, not fixing stuff that's overly lit, and it seems like everything that does make anything darker does so across the entire image rather than constraining itself to where it's needed.
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@Mason_Wheeler said in Anyone know much about photo work?:
@SirTwist said in Anyone know much about photo work?:
@error @Mason_Wheeler click on luminar 4 in the menu at the top and 4th item down is Download Trial.
Thanks, I missed that.
Interesting program, but no matter what I do with the tools it provides, I can't get it to balance the color brightness on her face. Most of the stuff that's specifically for portrait enhancement seems to be geared towards making things brighter, not fixing stuff that's overly lit, and it seems like everything that does make anything darker does so across the entire image rather than constraining itself to where it's needed.
At that point, I'd find a friend who's a pro-photographer and ask "how much do you want to <insert what you want> this". (I am quite willing to pay that "$1 for the part, $100 for the the knowledge" tax!)
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@Mason_Wheeler said in Anyone know much about photo work?:
and it seems like everything that does make anything darker does so across the entire image rather than constraining itself to where it's needed.
Starting to sound like a condescending broken record here, but...
- create a duplicate of the image on a new layer;
- apply any adjustments you want so the part you want to fix is fixed, while completely disregarding the effects on the rest of the image;
- use a layer mask, or the alpha channel, or the eraser tool, or whatever, to merge just the part you want back with the original image. Change the opacity of the fixed layer to adjust how strong the effect is;
- repeat as needed.
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@Zecc In this case I think he's trying to use the fancy AI software (trial version) that may not have layers to work with
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@hungrier said in Anyone know much about photo work?:
@Zecc In this case I think he's trying to use the fancy AI software (trial version) that may not have layers to work with
Seems best avoided. GIMP should be good enough for this sort of thing in my (limited, admittedly) experience.
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I got a sticker, but the background is white and the surfaces I want to put it on are black. What's the safest way to render the white substrate transparent? I still need it to stick to things after.
