Please help edit these santa photos

[kerry0621]

We had some pictures taken of the kids yesterday with Santa. They said I could take some of my own. Of course, the ones that I like the best of the kids, the flash didn't fire (I didn't use my Speedlite) Is there any way to edit these to make them worth printing? Thanks!

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e156/kerry0621/santa2007-04.jpg

http://i39.photobucket.com/albums/e156/kerry0621/santa2007-03.jpg

[joedlh]

These can be fixed. I loaded this one in Photoshop Elements. Auto adjust on Levels and Color correction. Make sure you work with a copy of the original image. (Save the original in a safe folder).

Are you sure your flash didn't work? What are those white gobs in Santa's glasses? I suspect that the white dress caused the flash to underexpose, trying to make it 18% gray. If you have flash compensation, the next time you're shooting a substantially white object, set it to 1-2 stop overexposure.

Do not use the photo I attached. I had to degrade it to fit the file size max imposed by this web site.

[kerry0621]

Are you sure your flash didn't work? What are those white gobs in Santa's glasses?

I think those are from the Santa photographer. I have some other shots that were correctly exposed, but of course one of the kids isn't looking.

I have Photoshop CS3, but I am not very good at it. I tried doing the auto adjust on levels. It makes it really "blue". Then do I just play around with the color, or is there an auto color adjustment too?

[rammy]

Try the following steps in PhotoShop

1) Open the image and select on the menu Image | Adjustment | Levels... Move the triangle on the right had side of that little graph to the left so it touches the edge of the graph. Also, see the three pipette looking icons on the bottom right of this Levels dialogue, click the one in the middle called "Set Gray Point". Now click in the picture on anything that is supposed to be a gray colour, such as the rims on the eye glasses. Click around until the orange colour cast goes, it becomes neutral and the dresses are white.

2) Next select Image | Adjustments | Shadow/Highlights... Move the Shadows "Amount" and "Tonal Width" sliders up a little to bring out more detail.

[lawmans3]

Here was my go at it. Like the other poster, I really had to degrade the image to get it small enough to post. If you want me to work on the original let me know. It's a pretty easy fix.:D

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