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HELP!! Calling any/all photoshop wizards!

S

steve jr.

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jul 4, 2005
332
4
Akron, OH
I need a HUGE favor! I am working on a senior slideshow for my graduating class and we have a picture that we would love to use, but the camera was really bad (Sony Mavica MVC FD90 (not sure about the model #, but I know it is a Mavica, and they look about the same and I know it takes a floppy disk.)), and the lighting not so good. I would like to know if anyone would be willing to volunteer some time and goodwill to work some magic to try and restore the picture to something half decent. Any and all help will be greatly appreciated. Here is the link to the original, and probably the best of about 5 of what I tired to do. For anyone who can pull this off and blow me away, I will find some way to repay you. Thank you, thank you, thank you to anyone who wants to give it a shot! If you have any questions, please IM me or PM me.

Original
MVC_018F.jpg


Mine
all222.jpg
 
Phobophobia, I just got up about 10 minutes ago, and that made me laugh so the day is going to go well. That's not quite what I was going for, but you get an A+ for effort, creativeness, and makin me laugh. I'll have to let my friends see that one.

bartelby, that is REALLY good! Mind sharing how you did that?

irmongoose, thanks for giving it a shot! That's about how most of mine turned out.
 
steve jr. said:
bartelby, that is REALLY good! Mind sharing how you did that?
Click to expand...

Sorry I was right in the middle of something and intended to come back and say.

For things like this I always run and Auto Colours first, if it looks fine I keep it. If not I'll undo it and manually correct colours.

And Save

Then do the same with Levels, Usually Auto Levels is way too much. For this I manually adjusted the mid tones.

And Save

Than ran NoiseNinja to reduce the amount of noise.

And Save

Finally I increased the saturation but not by too much as it'll emphasise the noise again.

That's about it.
 
One handy hint is if you run Auto Levels or Auto Colour and find it bit harsh, you can go to the Edit menu, and it will say "Fade Auto Levels" underneath the Undo settings. You then get a slider to reduce the effect slightly which is usually better. :)
 
Lau said:
One handy hint is if you run Auto Levels or Auto Colour and find it bit harsh, you can go to the Edit menu, and it will say "Fade Auto Levels" underneath the Undo settings. You then get a slider to reduce the effect slightly which is usually better. :)
Click to expand...

better still... do it manually. ;)
 
Lau said:
One handy hint is if you run Auto Levels or Auto Colour and find it bit harsh, you can go to the Edit menu, and it will say "Fade Auto Levels" underneath the Undo settings. You then get a slider to reduce the effect slightly which is usually better. :)
Click to expand...

Well you learn something new everyday!!:)

Has that feature always been there? I've used Photoshop since version 3.
There's not many of the newer features in PS that I use as I've always been able to do what I need to do.
 
iGav said:
better still... do it manually. ;)
Click to expand...

Snob. ;)



Seriously, though, I find Auto Levels is ok for tweaking the odd photo. I certainly find it worth a try, although a play with the Fade... command is usually needed. But I quite often end up doing it manually too, especially with the Auto Colours. Bright blue photo, anyone? :D

Bartelby, I don't know how long the fade bit has been there. I've only ever used PS 7 and CS, and I've only discovered it since I started using CS. Useful though, in spite of what iGav says. ;)
 
Levels balance out the light, dark and midtones. This works best on b/w pictures but is at times hit or miss when it comes to color. Colors are seen differently when it comes to levels which can cause some undesireable results. take red for instance, red is seen as black when placed in the levels spectrum and will cause people with dark complexions or reddish skin to appear very dark skinned. Curves are a better bet when it comes to color photos but will definately take a keen eye and alot of tweeking. There will definately be no formula that works every time and like how bartleby approached it by testing each process to see the results is the best way to attack it.
 
freeny said:
Levels balance out the light, dark and midtones. This works best on b/w pictures but is at times hit or miss when it comes to color. Colors are seen differently when it comes to levels which can cause some undesireable results. take red for instance, red is seen as black when placed in the levels spectrum and will cause people with dark complexions or reddish skin to appear very dark skinned. Curves are a better bet when it comes to color photos but will definately take a keen eye and alot of tweeking. There will definately be no formula that works every time and like how bartleby approached it by testing each process to see the results is the best way to attack it.
Click to expand...


Regardless of mode, curves are a far more powerful tool than levels and when images are moved into 16bit for tonal adjustment the effects of obvious posterisation are minimised.
 
I'd turn it into B&W and keep the grunge, dirty look to it. Adds a nice, hip-hop, street cred, urban, I-take-no-s#i†-from-anyone look to it.

MVC_018F-1.jpg
Here's to the Crazy Ones ​
 
bartelby said:
Than ran NoiseNinja to reduce the amount of noise.
Click to expand...
I tried it with Noise Ninja too, but I didn't like the soft look to it. Grain Surgery within After Effects would have produced a better image, but alas, GS uses the before and after frames to arrive at a noise reduction profile. Works well with video, though.
Here's to the Crazy Ones ​
 
Thanks everyone for helping me. I will admit that the black and white looks cool, but I will be going with bartelby's two minute masterpiece. THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH!
 
Lacero said:
I'd turn it into B&W and keep the grunge, dirty look to it. Adds a nice, hip-hop, street cred, urban, I-take-no-s#i†-from-anyone look to it.
Click to expand...

dang straight! Dont be messin with those street fighters;)

Seeing everyone in their photoshop skills makes me jealous, I really should take an online class or something, any suggestions?
 
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