Shadow removal... how do you do it?

[Kiraamzsy]

I approached my problem with blame, rather than doing what should have been done, and that's trying to figure out the best of way fix my problem. :oops:

I've got some pictures with shadows in them and need to remove them. I've been playing around with the pictures in PS and have results but they're not exactly what I had hoped.

The following picture is the picture in question (among others). What would you do to try and remove the shadows?

http://www.kiraamzsy.com/photographs/test.jpg

[IMG tags removed as photo violates POTN size rules]

[SkipD]

I can't really help you fix this image, but I might have an idea as to how you can prevent the problem in the future. It appears to me that you may have used a built-in flash with a lens and/or lens hood that was large enough that it blocked light from the flash for the lower portion of the image. Does this sound like it may be the case?

[Kiraamzsy]

I can't really help you fix this image, but I might have an idea as to how you can prevent the problem in the future. It appears to me that you may have used a built-in flash with a lens and/or lens hood that was large enough that it blocked light from the flash for the lower portion of the image. Does this sound like it may be the case?

Yes, that's what happened.
I'm just wondering if anyone has any tricks up their sleeve on how they fix something like that.

[PacAce]

Did you want detailed step-by-step instructions or are you adept enough with PS that a generalized description of the steps will suffice. I was going to post the result of what I did last night to see if that was what you were looking for but I noticed that you didn't have "Editing OK" turned on nor did you state in your post that it was OK to edit the image you provided so I didn't bother saving it.

[Kiraamzsy]

oh, sorry. yes, editing is ok in this.
General description on your steps would be perfect.

[PacAce]

1. Create a layer mask to remove as much of the yellowish color cast as possible.

a. Make a duplicate of the image and, using the Hue/Saturation Adjustment tool, increase Yellow to 100% to exaggerate the yellow color cast.

b. Use the Color Range selection tool to select the Yellow color and save the selection as "Yellow". This will create a channel called "Yellow".

c. Switch to the Channels palette and select the "Yellow" channel created above.

d. Using a brush of the appropriate size, paint with black the part of the trophy that's supposed to be gold. Since this channel is going to be used as a mask to remove the yellowish color cast, we want to make sure that we don't remove the gold color from the trophy itself.

e. You can now delete the duplicate image layer created in step 1a above.

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2. Create a layer mask to lighten up the shadow areas.

a. Switch back the Layers palette. We are going to make another Color Range selection but this time we are going to select Shadows instead of Yellow as our selection criteria. Save the selection as "Shadows".

b. Switch to the Channels palette and select the "Shadows" channel. This channel will looks almost like the "Yellow" channel at this point.

c. Using a brush and the Black color, paint over the girls' faces to mask them out. The rest of the top portion of the channel should already be black.

d. Select the White color and paint the bottom portion of the channel. There should be a gradual fading from black to white where the two color meet.

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3. Remove the yellow color cast.

a. Load the "Yellow" channel as a selection.

b. Create a Hue/Saturation Adjustment layer. Select Yellows and move the Saturation slider all the way to the left. Move the Brightness slider all the way to the right.

c. Since this layer alone did not remove as much of the yellow cast as I would like, I duplicated the Hue/Saturation layer to decrease the yellow a little more.


4. Brighten up the shadows.

a. Load the "Shadows" channel as a selection.

b. Expand the selection by 25 pixels (for this particular image). Then feather the selection by 25 pixels. This is done to get a gradual transition between the selected and the unselected portions of the layer.

c. Create a Levels Adjustment layer and adjust the white point and the mid-tone point to lighten up the shadow area.

d. Finish up by merging the layers and applying any contrast and sharpening corrections necessary.

NOTE: You can "fine tune" the mask by painting areas to be masked off with black and areas to be revealed with white.

The finished image is shown in the next post.

[PacAce]

Here's the completed image (resized for attachment):

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[Edit: OK, much better. I forgot to convert from ARGB to sRGB so the previous images were looking kind of pale. :o Now it's fixed.

[SkipD]

Yes, that's what happened.
I'm just wondering if anyone has any tricks up their sleeve on how they fix something like that.Derek, though this is aside from the "how to fix it" thread, the solution to avoid the problem again is to get a hotshoe flash such as the Canon Speedlite (xxxEX) series. Even the 430EX would do MUCH better than the built-in flash. In my opinion, it was a real waste for Canon to include a built-in flash in their DSLR's

[Tshoe]

Good job PAcAce:)

Terry

[Brad_T]

Great job (and description) PacAce!

[Hellashot]

I use lighten shadows in PSE 3, add extra contrast and saturation. Simple and sounds like a lot less work than that process explained earlier.

[PacAce]

I use lighten shadows in PSE 3, add extra contrast and saturation. Simple and sounds like a lot less work than that process explained earlier.
And you can also set your camera to the little green box and take pictures which seem very simple and a lot less work, too. ;)

BTW, where's your example?