Help Please with fixing an ugly shadow on image of a painting

[Martin_...@adobeforums.com]

I hope it's OK to ask advice on the technique needed to fix an image. I am used to processing images and making global adjustments but I wonder if there's away around this. My last resort will be to clone or heal but I want to retain the integrity of the image (it's of a painting). It has a shadow on it from the easle it was sat on whilst photographing.

Shadow detail: <http://www.imagesandwords.org.uk/test/UglyShadow.jpg>
Whole image: <http://www.imagesandwords.org.uk/test/UglyShadowLge.jpg>

Many thanks

Martin

I have CS4

[John Joslin]

Careful cloning will do the job. Clone on a new layer and use a soft-edged brush with slightly reduced opacity.

[Martin_...@adobeforums.com]

Many thanks John. I'm reluctant to clone because a) I'm not that good at it and b) I need to preserve the artist's brushstrokes and original intention/colour. I have had a go using layers with some dodging, different blending and opacity and this is the best I can come up with: <http://www.imagesandwords.org.uk/test/UglyShadowBetter.jpg> (so far).

Do you think there's a way that I could just clone in some of the canvas texture?

Regards

Martin

[Phosąfour dots]

No possibility of taking another photo?

That'd be my first choice, because I wouldn't want to mess with the artist's intentions either.

Not only could you get rid of that shadow, but you might think about positioning the lighting to better reveal the artist's brushstrokes.

[Martin_...@adobeforums.com]

Well, it might be possible to take another photograph but it's not easy. It's on my To Do list but I was hoping PS might get me through in the mean time.

Thanks

Martin

[PeterK.@adobeforums.com]

You might be able to go into each individual channel and use the dodge tool (try setting it for midtones and/or shadow tones) to lighten up the dark parts to match the surrounding area. Use a very soft big brush. This will maintain the original texture. Then once you've got each channel looking reasonably close, go into RGB mode and with a brush set to "color" mode, pick some of the surrounding blue colours and paint in some of that colour to tweak the area to match.

[KatW...@adobeforums.com]

you can try to select the area with a lasso tool
then refine edge with a good amount of feather (i used 10 pixels)
then try curves till you get a close match

here is my try
http://xs136.xs.to/xs136/09065/uglyshadowcopy839.jpg

[Jim_J...@adobeforums.com]

Here's the tool to use:

:)

[Gregor...@adobeforums.com]

Since you said you were familiar with making global adjustments, I did sort of
what KatWoman did and made a rough lasso selection (with just a bit of feather
- not much for now) then added an adjustment layer (curves, or whatever, or,
as I did, the dreaded levels - center slider to 1.8-ish - for my quickie
attempt), which creates a mask from the selection, and adjusted to suit. Then
I brushed at the mask with a nice large, soft edged, brush at low opacity to
soften the transition. This lets you continually brush out-to-in with black or
in-to-out with white, and lets you continue to play with the adjustment
settings, too.

Some of the artist's brush detail is still obviously going to be missing due
to the lack of detail in the shadow, but it's not bad for some purposes.

-Greg.

[Gregor...@adobeforums.com]

Since you said you were familiar with making global adjustments, I did sort of
what KatWoman did and made a rough lasso selection (with just a bit of feather
- not much for now) then added an adjustment layer (curves, or whatever, or,
as I did, the dreaded levels - center slider to 1.8-ish - for my quickie
attempt), which creates a mask from the selection, and adjusted to suit. Then
I brushed at the mask with a nice large, soft edged, brush at low opacity to
soften the transition. This lets you continually brush out-to-in with black or
in-to-out with white, and lets you continue to play with the adjustment
settings, too.

<http://www.users.cloud9.net/~gparet/photoshop/samples/UglyShadowFix.jpg>

[JD]

Are you still accessing this forum with your newsreader? So you can see
my reply but the forum posters can't?

Your correction looks good. Easier than a re-shoot. ;-)

--
JD..

[jnta...@earthlink.net]

Looks to me like that is smoke coming from the chimney.

[Martin_...@adobeforums.com]

Thank you for all thos ideas. Very helpful. The best option is re-shoot of course, but I think I can come up with a reasonable fix until I can get round there!

Kind regards

Martin

[Gernot_...@adobeforums.com]

For me, the 'shadow' is in fact smoke.
Anyway, the image is looking considerably
cropped at the top.

Best regards --Gernot Hoffmann