Any Hope to Save this One?

[ChP]

The lighting was just awful when I came across a bunch of monkeys in some trees on the side of the road. I have a bunch of shots, but the sky was not picturesque, and the moneys were underexposed.

Any photoshop peoples have ideas on how to save these?

[Aethyr]

I adjusted the saturation because the greens didn't seem green enough, and then adjusted the brightness and contrast. It's hard to deal with black furry animals in pictures so that will be difficult to do, but I just wanted to see what I could do for it real quick. It's a little better.

[ssim]

It is probably saveable. I'm working on my laptop and don't normally like to as it is sometimes hard to judge the levels properly. Here is my quick attempt.

[Aethyr]

^ That looks too dark to me, but I'm on a laptop too.

[ChP]

It doesn't look too bad, thanks... what did you do?
This image is difficult because the sky was really white and the monkey is extremely dark.

[ssim]

I created an adjustment layer for curves. Tweaked it through curves. I always had the primate a little too dark so I dodged it every so slightly. Added a little contrast. That's it.

[solveg@aol.com]

We can't really do much with the monkey with the low res file...hopefully there's more detail in the original you can bring out. Whenever I get something overexposed, I usually first try to put a duplicate layer on top of it to multiply it, at about a 30% weight. Then you can see what you have to work with. You don't want it too light or it will get hollow.

Mess with a lighting filter in photoshop and the fade it way back for the sky.

[Tom W]

Gave it a quick shot myself. Curves, moved the midpoint in levels, lowered the max a bit also. Increased saturation by about 15:

http://www.pbase.com/photosbytom/image/41272190.jpg

[tupe]

I darkened shadows and sharpened it a bit. Could make the body darker, but we'd lose the detail.

-Then I did an eyedropper on a really dark place on the subject and made it a truer black with the color balance tool. (Ulead PhotoImpact).

[AdamG]

I like SSIM's rendition; it's a tough shot since the background is so bright, but getting rid of the "haze" brought the subject back. Tupe's teaks are also cool for the "purposely slight overexposure" look. Incidently, what are you guys using to tweak the pictures. I like Photoshop Elements 3 for quick fixes.

[solveg@aol.com]

Do many people use Colorsync to display web pages? I was wondering why my images were so much darker on the web until I realized it was the colorsync. How do you know how people are going to be seeing your stuff? I know that the mac screen is much lighter than PC screens....

Also, when you're going to print, you have to have a pin dot where our image is blown out. When you're just making prints on photographic paper is it OK to have no dot at all?

[AdamG]

SolveG, I don't use anything really to tweak my settings besides the usual brightness and contrast controls. I have tweaked those based on personal preferences, ie, if a picture looks great to everyone and it looks great on my display, then it must be set ok. I know it's not the most accurate measure but it works and it make my life easier. My laptop needs some tweaking because things look a lot brighter on it. I know what you mean about the changes in picture quality though because I sometimes browse this forum at lunch time at work and find that many pictures just don't look right.

[dkord]

http://www.sparksonline.org/asm/dkord/altcrop140_4019.jpg

Really can't give detail to what's not there. So I just tried to give it a little pop.

[Titus213]

I did levels, then created a dup layer, desaturate, invert, blur, overlay, levels again. Don't know if it's much better.

[Paul A]

Those howlers are tough, they're so dark and you're always lookin up at them. I've taken lots of pics of them and few look decent. I will post some.
Paul

[Michaelmjc]

Well I use photoshop quite a bit, so here is my attempt at it.

[Paul A]

I don't remember what all I did to this pic but it was a lot of trial and error, I think I used photoshop.
Paul

[Biko]

Shadow/highlights, then used the dodge tool at 50% to work at monkeys face then curves, back to Shadow/highlights and used just highlight as was going to alter brightness and contrast but decided not to.

http://www.btinternet.com/~i.c.palmer/140_4019.jpg

[Bitmap]

My try

[Russ Jones]

nice pic BTW, a howler monkey??


Cheers,

Russ

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v156/britishcanuk/monkey.jpg

[ChP]

Yep, howler it is. The shot was taken in Costa Rica. The howler monkeys can be pretty loud, wlaking through the cloud forests they can be heard long before they are seen.

[NEC1236]

Nice job Biko, I did about the same, but added some warmth and a little cyan to the sky

[AJ Montgomery]

How bout this:
http://www.kajmonty.com/gallery/albums/Post/140_4019x.jpg

[CyberDyneSystems]

I'll have a crack at it if you have the RAW file available...

[PhotosGuy]

I'll have a crack at it if you have the RAW file available... Me, too.

[ChP]

I have the RAW file but need a way to post it. The .zip is 6.35 MB...

[CyberDyneSystems]

You wouldn't be able to post it here,.
Either host it on your own site if you have one,. or maybe E-mail?
(big attachment!)

[RbrtPtikLeoSeny]

I think Michael did a fantastic PS on the picture. Looks great now.