finger in front of flash...

[Stormies r us]

These are two photos I took at my parents house on Christmas Eve..one would think I would have gotten a clue when my finger felt a little warmish that it was in front of the flash...:o but noooooo I took a second shot and the same thing happened, DUH! I edit photos in PSE 4 and I have no clue how to fix this. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Sonya
http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa159/stormieandbrian/flash-problem-2.jpghttp://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa159/stormieandbrian/flash-problem-1.jpg

[Emma]

yeah, 3rd degree burns are usually my indicator, and I don't think I have any fingerprints left on that one! Thank goodness for my external flash, that darn pop up can't fire anymore with that baby hooked up!

In PSE, here's what I would try first

1. Layer>New Adjustment>Levels, and pump up the brightness on the whole thing: don't worry about overexposing the light area, just get the dark area roughly to match the light side.
2. After that layer is added, click on the Mask Thumbnail, and use a large, soft, black Brush tool to paint over the lighter side of the photo. This will remove the adjustment on that part.
3. Double click the levels layer thumbnail to open the Levels box and readjust the settings for a more precise match.
4. Paint on the mask some more as needed. If you cover up too much, use a WHITE brush to uncover it.

Here's a tutorial for using adjustment layer masks, good in PS and PSE. This one has you make no adjustment, and is a solid fill, but painting on the mask is the same concept. You won't use a textured brush, just someting like Large Airbrush 300 from the default list
http://www.digitalscrapbookplace.com/university/tutorials/ps_layermasks.shtml
Hope that helps!

[Wuzzygirl]

excellent response from Emma....i was going to suggest the same thing. it's really easier than it sounds and works quite well :)

[Emma]

yeah, the explanation does look a bit daunting, but really add a Levels adj layer, use the dialog to adjust the Levels, paint on the mask to limit the adjustment. It's the "paint on the mask" that'll get you if you have never used one, but this is an easy way to start!

[Amanda]

i did this all the time too until i got my external flash. hate that!

[kydeb]

I've used the process in this video tutorial when I needed to do "non-destructive" dodge-burn on a photo such as yours where part of the photo appeared over exposed and part appeared to be under exposed. I think with a little time, this would work.

http://tutorials.watchandlearnphotoshop.com/tutorials/ps/dodge_burn.html

There are other tutorials on the watch and learn photoshop site that are good too.

Good luck!
Deb

[Stormies r us]

yeah, 3rd degree burns are usually my indicator, and I don't think I have any fingerprints left on that one! Thank goodness for my external flash, that darn pop up can't fire anymore with that baby hooked up!

LOL LOL Emma you had me rolling on that one!

Here is the final version....I'm not totally satisfied with it but I think it's much better than it was. The thing that's bothersome to me is the contrast between the edited layers. I don't know...maybe I'll try again tommorrow to see if I can get it any better. (any suggestions?)

I'm checking in to getting one of the lightspheres....until I read that you need an external flash. Sooooo external flash is first on my wish list:)

Thank you so much for your help.

p.s. Would this be called destructive editing?

http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa159/stormieandbrian/help-take-3.jpg

[Emma]

Levels can adjust not only the brightness, but the contrast too. Here's a trick: if you make a Levels adj layer and brighten it up, then mask half the photo as you've done here, you can make ANOTHER Levels adj layer (duplicate the one you have), and on the mask hit CTRL-I to invert the black to white and white to black. Then double click the Levels thumbnail and put the brightness back and lower the LEFT/BLACK slider a bit to add contrast to match the other half of the image.

Really, all I see is the santa-hat guy is a bit grayer, but the rest on that side look good. You may need to adjust just that area of the photo. After adding the Levels adj layer for him, fill the mask with black, then white brush him back in so you can see the changes again.