FIRST - I didn't shoot this... ok? good. Why do relatives take advantage of those who have photoshop skills? I WISH I would have offered to take the pic so I didn't have to try to FIX someone elses pic. The worst part is they seriously want to insert this into their Christmas cards. SO.... here is what I've gotten myself into. I was asked to take this photo and add two people in the upper left space. Fine. I can do that. BUT... this pic is so horrible I am not sure how to proceed. I've tried saturating, adding contrast, color balance... and I don't know how to do color replacement. WHO would like to try this and help me fix it?? I think it's a daunting challenge!! lol Hey, If it isn't fixable at least I can tell the photo owner that I asked the pros!! This 40 kb image is what I was sent, btw. "sigh" Good luck and thanks for trying (or advising me on how to proceed). Jodie :0) p.s. if you recognize anybody in this pic.... don't tell them I wimped out. lol

There wasn't much I could do with the blown out highlights, but here's my shot at it. :-) 

Krista G.

hey - this is the best i could do in about 10 minutes of playing.

In short well i put a black layer behind the image and then used the blend options on the image to do a gradual blend of the black side of the spectrum "this layer" (hold the alt button when moving the slider and it splits it - my values read 50/195) just despeckled a duplicate layer of the image and put it to about 70-80% transparency, that took the edge off the grain. Then put it all onto one layer and played with the levels / brightness contrast.

Hope you like it :)

edit - of course if you had a lot of time you could just paint over each "granule" (?) to get the image smoother - but that would probably take about 2-3 hours ;)

tough one. perhaps with a larger file we could do more. Still noisy but I tried to keep as much detail as possible.

OMG.. you all are awesome! And quick on the draw, too. YAY!! Each one of them is SUCH and improvement over what I was given. I asked for a higher res. shot. No go. It was cropped like that. I knew I'd find PS wizards in here... Thank you, thank you! Rich - thanks for the guidance. I'll give that a try, too. Jodie :0)

I'll hava go at it 2morow night.

One more try from me...maybe a tiny bit better?

A quick try, but not any better than the rest. Is this from a scan, or a digital camera? I am sure with the original file (at high res) a lot more could be done to improve it.

Ok here's my try... Hope you like it...

Wow... thanks you guys. I really don't have time to play with this right now and of course they need it to mail out! I can't tell you how much I appreciate it! I can't decide which I like the best but ALL are an improvement. Look how each one is just a little bit different! Just goes to show you what can be done with PS knowledge and a little time. AWESOME!! Jodie :0)

Well I have had a go not sure it's much better.  It's better than some I get in work that need cleaning .

Yeah, this is your specialty, right Fred?

Jodie, is this the largest size you have (of the photo)? Its easier to work with large images. You should also try the 2D forum and see if someone there can help.

I think she was under a time limit and used one of the previous attempts. Yes, that was the largest she had.

Yes, Kort is correct. The image I put here was the best I could get from the family. (I know that a higher res. would have been helpful, so we did the best with what we were given.) I asked Kort's permission to use one of his attempts and then I added the couple that was not present for the group photo. (THAT photo was much nicer to work with!) Here is what I sent the family. Thanks for all your help and advice! Kort, I owe you a favor... Jodie :0)

Well .... it said my file size was too large... let me try again.

Hmmm... Now, after lowering the resolution, it just looks fuzzy. However, it's the best I feel like doing at home on dial-up! You get the idea. Jodie

Nice work Jodie! :)