BURNT OUT WEDDING DRESS

I have scanned some colour negatives(30 years old!) taken at a wedding, with very good results - apart from the white wedding dress being burnt out.

I have tried selecting the area concerned and then darkening it in Levels but nothing happens : is there any solution?

Unfortunately it sounds like the negatives were overexposed at the time of taking the images. This would result in there being no detail in the pure whites in the image, i.e. the dress. If that's the case then you have no chance at all of getting detail there by using any of the PS tricks.

You could, and it wouldn't be easy, open up an image where there is detail in the dress (if there is one) and clone part of that dress detail into the one(s) without any detail. To do that you would have to take care that resolution and image size were identical prior to cloning in order to preserve realism.

Barry

If there is any white left in the image, try using the heal tool to fill in the burtn parts.

colliewalker1 wrote:
I have scanned some colour negatives(30 years old!) taken at a wedding, with very good results - apart from the white wedding dress being burnt out.

I have tried selecting the area concerned and then darkening it in Levels but nothing happens : is there any solution?

I'd do a re-scan and would scan it so that there was as much detail in the whites of the dress as I could get. Maybe this is possible and maybe it isn't, but go for the whites and ignore the rest of the shot for the moment. A lot of times the whites look like there's nothing in them but that's often because to get those whites you'd have to ruin the rest of the shot. But that is what I want you to do.

If the dress looks OK (and at this point the rest of the shot should be WAY too dark) save it in Photoshop as a .psd file and give it a name. Then do another scan and this time just scan for values of everything BUT the dress. Bring that into Photoshop as well, choose Select, Select All, Copy. Go back to the first shot and create a New Layer. Make sure you are on that Layer and choose Paste.

The wedding image that you should now see has the blown out white dress. If you select the Erase tool at about 20% (or whatever) you can "erase" the overexposed white dress to reveal the better exposure underneath.

Make sure that you do the scans one right after the other and that the neg doesn't move - even a little - or you'll have registation problems.

I use this technique all of the time to "double decode" RAW files. With a digital file it's a bit simpler because you don't have to make two "scans" and registration isn't a problem. In any case this is worth a try. Let us know how it turns out.

Dave -

I have made some progress but am not quite there yet!

For the first rescan I 'de- brightened' the photo considerably - and the good news is that detail appeared in the dress!

I then made the second scan which I made look OK - except for the dress.

Re 'Go back to the first shot and create a NEW Layer' - unfortunately I am very 'green'as regards Layers and ran into dificulty at that stage: I was unable to make the layer with the burnt out dress appear over the dark version of the photo - I'll be very grfateful if I can trouble you to take me in easy stages as regards choosing the right Layer from the choices i.e. Layer/Layer From background/Layer Set/Layer via Copy as none of them seemed to work for me.

Many thanks -

Denis

Take the first shot - and it doesn't matter whether it's with the good or blown out dress and give it a name. X1234.psd (or whatever). Then scan the second shot and give it a name too like X1234light.psd. On the second shot choose, "Select" - that's the command that's part of the regular Window's "File, Edit, Image, Layer ..." line, and I'll put that command in quotes from now on. After you choose "Select" it'll open up a string of options. Choose Select All, and you should gets the "marching ants" indication all around this shot. Then go to "Edit" and choose Copy.

Now go back to the first image. Click on that shot to make sure you are on it. Choose "Layers" and then New Layer ... (it's right at the top). A dialogue box will open and you should just click OK.

Under "Window" on the top deck with all those "File, Edit ...Window" commands make sure that Layers is checked. This will open up the Layer's dialogue box. After you open the Layer's dialogue box have a look at it. It should have a tiny image of the original shot entitled "Background". Above this shot will be an empty white chequered box with the title of "Layer 1". Whatever the current layer you are on should be blue in the dialogue box. Choose the Background layer and the blue will move to that one. Toggle a bit back and forth so you see what I mean. Now make sure that you are on the Layer 1 (blue, right?) and choose "Edit" and under that Paste. The other image has been sitting in memory all this time and will now be pasted onto the other layer - Layer 1 that is. Now you should see another tiny image in the layer dialogue box where that empty chequered box was.

If you want the too light dress layer on top (and I would) or bottom you can drag the layers in the Layers pallete to change their order. When you try this with the Background Layer you'll find that you can't move it although a dialogue box will pop up. Just double click on the box and it'll change the name from Background to Layer 0. Then you can change the order. If you are using a bunch of layers it's a good idea to give each layer a name so you know which one you are on.

Now you have two layers, on light and one dark. Make sure that you are on the top layer and choose the Eraser Tool, which is just below the Clone Stamp Tool. Once chosen you can change the opacity of this tool in the dialogue box above. You probably don't want 100% since that would be all or nothing. Choose 20% and plan on "erasing" a bit at a time. You can easily change the size of the eraser brush by using the [and the] keys on the keyboard. If the "blown out dress" layer is on top you now erase that dress area revealing the better one underneath.

If you do too much erasing you can go to the History dialogue box after you enable it under "Window" and just click on a lind a few above where you are now. They call it History but it's really an un-do.

This is my favorite way to erase from one layer and reveal the layer underneath. When you have the desired layer on top, make sure that is your active layer and hit the mask button (small circle inside of a rectangle in the bottom of the layers pallette). It will automatically turn the foregroun/background colors to black and white. When white is on top, you can use the eraser tool, but if you mess up, you just click on the color to bring black to the front and you can use the eraser tool to paint the original back.

Thanks Dave for the further very detailed information - I really appreciate the time you have taken to guide me through the process.

Sorry to trouble you further - I think I am ALMOST there - but now that I have the combined original and layer 'welded' together, how do I 'peel away' the unwanted layer?!

Many thanks for this tip.

You don't NOT "weld" together the layers until you are done. If you "flatten" them - which is really the command ["Layer", Flatten Image] - you have lost the all the non visible layers below and what you see is what you've got.

Leave the layers intact, that is not flattened. Use the erase tool to get rid of the layer that you don't like, and then after you are satisified save it. Then flatten the image and save it with a slightly different name, X1234 becomes X1234flat, for example. You will need to use a flattened image for printing since the printer may only see the top layer. But with two saved images, a flattened one and one that still has layers you can go back and make later modifications to the layer version if you need too.

Once again after you Flatten Image, and Save, all of the underlying non visible layers are gone. The History tool will give you the ability to jump back to the pre-flatten Layer but only until you close the file.

Thanks again David for your help - as a result I now have a photo showing some good detail in the dress.The forum is fortunate to have members like you.

I always had poor results scanning transparencies & negs, so I put together a rig for duping which would get RAW files in the conversion. The results were quite good.
Do you Cobble? (Slide duplicator)
https://photography-on-the.net …?t=58609&highli​ght=cobble

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