PP help--getting rid of hot spots? (pics included)

[Bru]

Is there any way I can get rid of the GIANT hot spot on the woman's face in this picture?


F4 by Keely Brubaker, on Flickr

And again in black and white...


F5 by Keely Brubaker, on Flickr

 

[tirediron]

If you have access to an application with u-point technology (Capture NX 2, the NiK software suite, LR3(I think), then you can adjust the shadow up and the hot spot down, but not by much or they're going to look ugly in a hurry. If not, then select the areas, create layers and adjust them that way. With either process, you're not going to get a lot of adjustment, but it may help some.

 

[Bru]

I do have LR3, I'll try to work with that, thanks =)

 

[GooniesNeverSayDie11]

If you use photoshop you can salvage it slightly. I mean this is just using the tiny pics that you posted which makes it look even more sloppy. I just used the clone brush, patch tool, and some dodging and burning.


edit5 by GooniesNeverSayDie11, on Flickr


Edit55 by GooniesNeverSayDie11, on Flickr

 

[Bru]

If you use photoshop you can salvage it slightly. I mean this is just using the tiny pics that you posted which makes it look even more sloppy. I just used the clone brush, patch tool, and some dodging and burning.


edit5 by GooniesNeverSayDie11, on Flickr


Edit55 by GooniesNeverSayDie11, on Flickr

=O Teach me your ways. Any way you can walk me through that?

 

[KmH]

Sure! It will be difficult making it look natural though. A bigger issue is the little girl is amost invisible.

Avoid direct sunlight at all costs. If you must shoot in direct sunlight, avoid dappled sunlight at all costs.

To shoot effectively in direct sunlight you need a fairly powerful strobe and must use high speed sync.

Use the selections tools to select the hot spot, clone from further back on her cheek, dodge the hard shadows to bring back some detail.

 

[oldmacman]

If you use photoshop you can salvage it slightly. I mean this is just using the tiny pics that you posted which makes it look even more sloppy. I just used the clone brush, patch tool, and some dodging and burning.


edit5 by GooniesNeverSayDie11, on Flickr


Edit55 by GooniesNeverSayDie11, on Flickr

Nice edit on the cheek.

 

[GooniesNeverSayDie11]

=O Teach me your ways. Any way you can walk me through that?

Well do you only have LR3? Or do you have Photoshop as well? I can't walk you through every minute detail, but I listed the tools I used. You will have to learn to use each them and then the rest is just a matter of taste as to how strong or how weak you adjust them. As for cloning, just look up how to use the tool and then practice on spreading the darker part of her cheek just next to her mouth, across the rest of her face. I also added a little blur just to smooth out the cloned areas. The dodging and burning is just eyeballing it with a low exposure setting to slowly add changes ( although I am not extremely happy with how her skin tone came out, but given the small pic and the time I was prepared to waste on it, it was good enough and looked better in the B&W ) Hope this helps.

I would also heed kmh's advice, the best fix for this type of shot is to avoid shooting it, or when it does happen, cut your losses and re-shoot with better circumstances. Learn to use flash effectively or use reflectors and let the sun help you instead of working against you. Call it a lesson learned. However, I will just assume that this is a photo that you are not able to re-do.

Oh, I also did minor adjustments to the levels just to add a little more contrast. The B&W was done with a gradiant map and channel mixer.

 

[Bru]

=O Teach me your ways. Any way you can walk me through that?

Well do you only have LR3? Or do you have Photoshop as well? I can't walk you through every minute detail, but I listed the tools I used. You will have to learn to use each them and then the rest is just a matter of taste as to how strong or how weak you adjust them. As for cloning, just look up how to use the tool and then practice on spreading the darker part of her cheek just next to her mouth, across the rest of her face. I also added a little blur just to smooth out the cloned areas. The dodging and burning is just eyeballing it with a low exposure setting to slowly add changes ( although I am not extremely happy with how her skin tone came out, but given the small pic and the time I was prepared to waste on it, it was good enough and looked better in the B&W ) Hope this helps.

I would also heed kmh's advice, the best fix for this type of shot is to avoid shooting it, or when it does happen, cut your losses and re-shoot with better circumstances. Learn to use flash effectively or use reflectors and let the sun help you instead of working against you. Call it a lesson learned. However, I will just assume that this is a photo that you are not able to re-do.

I have both, I'm working on it in CS5 right now, and I did as you suggested and looked up more on how to use those tools. Thanks so much again for the advice, I'm not nearly done working on it but it is looking light years better already. I really do appreciate it, I didn't meant to come off as unappreciative if I did (when I asked for a walk-through).

 

[Bru]

Alright here's what I ended up with. Had to make it black and white because the color seemed to have almost a greenish hue to it where I had fixed the hot spot. Thoughts?


F05 by Keely Brubaker, on Flickr

 

[GooniesNeverSayDie11]

I have both, I'm working on it in CS5 right now, and I did as you suggested and looked up more on how to use those tools. Thanks so much again for the advice, I'm not nearly done working on it but it is looking light years better already. I really do appreciate it, I didn't meant to come off as unappreciative if I did (when I asked for a walk-through).

Not at all, I didn't take it as unappreciative. I hope you didn't take my response in a bad way. I just mean, I can show you the tools, but ultimately you have to use them and most of the actual use involves more of personal taste and lots of tiny little unmeasurable increments ( like when dodging and burning ) so its hard to tell someone exactly how to do it. Its always good to do everything non destructively on its own layer though so you can delete it or at the least, toggle it on and off to see the impact.

Not bad on your edit, if thats your first time taking a shot at using those tools, I think you are definately on the right track. I would just maybe dodge the mids and shadows on her face and neck as well as the front portion of the guys face a little more and adjust the levels. Your B&W to me seems sort of bland and mostly grays. You need more whites and pure blacks IMO. Use the levels to adjust the white and black points and also tweak the midtone contrast. Its hard to do without making the little girl too dark ( I didn't do a very good job in my conversion with this but you can always use a levels layer mask with some gray paint so that the effect is not as drastic in that specific area of the pictures )

 

[Bru]

I have both, I'm working on it in CS5 right now, and I did as you suggested and looked up more on how to use those tools. Thanks so much again for the advice, I'm not nearly done working on it but it is looking light years better already. I really do appreciate it, I didn't meant to come off as unappreciative if I did (when I asked for a walk-through).

Not at all, I didn't take it as unappreciative. I hope you didn't take my response in a bad way. I just mean, I can show you the tools, but ultimately you have to use them and most of the actual use involves more of personal taste and lots of tiny little unmeasurable increments ( like when dodging and burning ) so its hard to tell someone exactly how to do it. Its always good to do everything non destructively on its own layer though so you can delete it or at the least, toggle it on and off to see the impact.

Not bad on your edit, if thats your first time taking a shot at using those tools, I think you are definately on the right track. I would just maybe dodge the mids and shadows on her face and neck as well as the front portion of the guys face a little more and adjust the levels. Your B&W to me seems sort of bland and mostly grays. You need more whites and pure blacks IMO. Use the levels to adjust the white and black points and also tweak the midtone contrast. Its hard to do without making the little girl too dark ( I didn't do a very good job in my conversion with this but you can always use a levels layer mask with some gray paint so that the effect is not as drastic in that specific area of the pictures )

Oh no, I didn't take your response badly--I just wanted to make sure you knew I wasn't trying to be lazy & ungrateful ^.^

Thanks for the extra tips, I'll play with it a little later...right now I think I'll go cross-eyed if I look at that picture one more time.

Only thing I'm concerned about with it is whether it looks TOO smoothed...I used the heal brush some on there as well, and I'd prefer for it not to look like I did ;P I did this shoot for free, I'm working on my portfolio, but I still want it to look like they paid for it!!!