Screwed up, need major pro help!

I was taking pictures today, and i had set my exposure comp at around -1 2/3. I had taken these photos (all in jpegops, thinking that they might only end up slightly underexposed. however, when i got home and looked at them, i was horrified to see this:

Hi 4nR,

I'm not a pro. However, if you want the person to show better in a backlit situation. The exposure compensation should be +1 2/3, but not - 1 2/3.

Samm

use the flash too

Try using the Shadows in Shadow/Highlights, you probably need to pull it up pretty high to get some detail in the shadow areas.

i did use the shadows option, in addition to the exposure options as well (in cs2) and also screened several layers. the end result is the second photo. the colors are all washed out, and saturation doesnt seem to help either. are there any other tricks i can use?

Try this:

Auto Color (yeah, it's cheezy, but it helps a bit)
Shadows/Highlights (set the amount to zero for highlights and full blast in shadows - 100%) and at the bottom with the color adjustments, blast that up too, to +100%. That should increase the color saturation. Since I'm sitting with a small image, it's hard to do much about it... but there's info there.

when i increased the color sat, it just became messy. i think i might have to settle for just making it b&w. (repeatedly hits head against wall)

We have a regular challenge in the competitions forum where people post under/overexposed photos so our serious PS gurus can work on improving them. I'd suggest posting your photo there.

This is a particularly good example: http://www.photography​-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=81742

Since I don't know what you want from this image, it's a bit hard to edit it (plus it's a low-res image). But I'd suggest you try what I did.

1. Auto Color
2. Shadow/Highlights (full blast on Shadows, Highlights zero and at the bottom full blast on the color adjustment)
3. Play in curves or levels, plus perhaps increase saturation more
4. A pass through some noise reduction if it's too noisy

This is my 2 min quick-fix:

Byte size: ZERO | Content warning: NOT AN IMAGE

I'll give it a try. and thank you cyberpet for your inputs.

heres my quick attempt hahah. im not sure what you're looking for, but it seemed like you wanted higher sat, so i tried to raise it up a bit.

HTTP response: NOT FOUND | MIME changed to 'image/png'

My attempt. Pretty dull compared to Nicky's, but I was really trying to pull out the face. This is a great shot, by the way.

thanks. I've actually moved this thread over to competitions, as suggested by big ben. https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=97852