Help!

[tor_na_do]

Hi guys, I hope it's okay to ask this in here.

I took some ugly pictures with a mobile and some of them (actually, almost all of them) look REALLY dark.

Comments

[anivad]

ok, I had Photoshop open and managed to get this:



Basic brightening wouldn't work, because the darkness means insufficient colour information. So you'll have to experiment with multiple steps.

What I did (in Photoshop CS3):

Curves: 253/94 and 132/22
Brightness -5 Contrast +36
Filter -> Reduce Noise: Reduce Color Noise 100%, Strength 6, Preserve Details 60% Sharpen Details 0%
Filter -> Despeckle (twice)

Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E to create new layer from all previous layers. Use the Smudge tool and manually remove the remaining noise by smoothing it out. I didn't do a very good job.

Levels 0 1.46 255
bring the levels adjustment layer below the smudged layer
set smudge layer to 62%
Color Balance -> Green +21
Create new layer from the lot. Sharpen, set to 51%.

[tor_na_do]

Hahah I didn't expect less steps since I know it's difficult to work these low quality pictures.
I'll try this out with the other ones. Thank you!