street performer in Seattle, If I can get this to work, any opinions welcome

http://i18.photobucket​.com …30/saravrose/IM​G_1271.jpg

there are many ways to go at it, but (assuming you have photoshop) I'd use the pen tool to draw a path around all the underexposed areas, convert that path to a selection area and use the alpha channel to blur edges of the selection where needed (around the plants and such,) then use "levels" to try to balance the foreground a bit better, looks like there's a decent range in the shadows to work with.

If you do have PS, use the layer adjustment, Curves. It'll give you more control.
Neat shot, I've not seen him before. Next time you're there you can try fill flash or use partial metering on the performer if you want more detail on him.
If you purposely underexposed him, then I would just meter on the highlights behind him.

A third approach may be to use Burn and Dodge with a Layer in PhotoShop.
Check the Raitch’s tutorial in this forum.

First, I'm assuming your picture is cut down for posting and you have a much larger original to work with...

I have a quick way in PS to see if there is any usable data in the underexposed area's or if it's just too far gone. in PS, go to the menu and open the menu for Image / adjustment / levels. Then in the top histogram there are three arrow sliders at the bottom. Grab the middle one and drag to the left, usually 1/2 way between middle and left side (so 1/4 from left). Then go to Image / Adjustment / Hue/Saturation and increase the saturation by appox 40... that will fix the color. Then reduce the brightness by approx 20 to bring down the overall whiteout in the picture.

Same thing works for overexposed area's just drag the middle level arrow to the right instead... try it and you will see the outside brincks show up. Then sometimes your hue/saturation needs to be lowered, then brightness increased... it's for the most part completely opposite of the udnerexposed method, but depending on how overexposed the picture is... it seems you usually need to do some extra tweaking with the color.

I find that this is a quick 10 second way to find out if your picture is savable and if there's any underlying data to your over/under exposure on jpg's. Once I identify that there is data, then you can put the time and effort into slicing and dicing up the picture.

here's how it looks after I just did the above... took 10 seconds. as you can there is some usable data there, however I brought it right to the part where you see some green noise showing and the center of the jeans were just too far gone... but atleast you know that with a little time, you can probably get this picture looking really good.

http://www.chrisopedia​.com/MISC/IMG_1271r.jp​ghttp://www.chrisopedia​.com/

To fix the noise, use a dust & scratches filter (2px with a threshold around 10) to get rid of the noise, which will blur it a bit, but then use sharpen to clean up the edges.. this picture doesn't have enough pixels for me to show you the correction, you need to do this on the original.. I'm assuming it's 5MP or larger? you will definitly be able to get this really good for a 4x6 photo, it's proably too far gone for a blowup.

thanks everybody, definately need to practice and yes shot with 8MP . Seattle was an incredible place unfortunately I saw him on my second day there and never saw him again... Would have loved to have had another oppurtunity.

Saravrose, you may want to edit your previous post. The URL has the http prefix duplicated. Nice picture, beautiful girl.
Also check your thread abby in seattle you forgot the link…
I am just trying to be of some help.

Best regards.

Here's a few minute's work on your image.
I used the layer adjustment tools, then used the paint brush to erase parts of the adjustment that didn't need it.
The thing about using the layer adjustments is it's less destructive so you have less noise and color issues.
I do admit I'm more conservative with my pp practices.
http://www.sparksonlin​e.org …d/testIMG_1271%​20copy.jpg

My 2c ... always use fill flash for that kind of harsh shadows!

Best regards,
Andy