Please Help! Can this photo be salvaged?

|DeZaStR| · May 16, 2005

Ok...this is going to seem corny to many of you, but I am very serious when I ask for help here...

My wife and I both enjoy watching pro wrestling (WWE). We went to a live event this weekend, and the current champ Batista stopped to have his picture taken with my wife. However, I got in too much of a hurry and didn't adjust the flash (I had it set on full for taking pictures all night of them in the ring...very dark). Well, the flash completely washed out their faces. I've tried some things in photoshop, but can't get any good results. Is there ANYTHING at all I can try to save this once in a lifetime photo? Please let me know any and all options I have...

http://img96.echo.cx/my.php?image=img60436ch.jpg

This is just the 800x600 resolution version. I have the full 4MP version at home if that would make any difference.

Thanks in advance...

|DeZaStR| · May 16, 2005

Anyone?

ksmattfish · May 16, 2005

It looks pretty bad. Take the full size file to a pro lab that does digital restoration, and see what they can do.

Digital Matt · May 16, 2005

Is this digital, and if so, did you shoot in raw? That's your only hope.

Meysha · May 16, 2005

So what are your chances of running into this guy again and asking him for another photo?

Your chances are pretty slim here, of coming out with a decent photo.
The problem is, there just isn't any data in the blown out bits... so if there's no data there you can't really recover it.
The guys face has a small bit of hidden features - like his nose, eyes, some shadows and a part of his mouth is still hidden in there.
But the only part of your wife I could find was her eyes and glasses.

It's easier to recover drastically underexposed pics than it is to recover over exposed pics.

|DeZaStR| · May 16, 2005

ksmattfish: I'll give it a shot.

Digital Matt: It is digital, but I rarely shoot in RAW mode. So, no...even the original is just one big JPG.

Meysha: The chances of running into him again are slim to none...and slim just left town. To wrestling fans, he's essentially a celebrity. It was just by chance that he stopped for us. Out of the 200-300 fans at and around ringside, he only did this for one other person. Regarding your photo comments, you are describing the very items I was able to find using Photoshop as well. I thought about the possibility of re-posing my wife in a similar manner, and attempting to reshoot and rebuild the photo from a new one using photoshop. Although, it will never look perfect I don't believe.