Silhouette

[cipoet]

Dear All,
I got this problem here.
Shot this inside a museum with a dim light, no flash.

I intend to make a silhouette from profile sitting in front, unfortunately it became to dark.

Can anybody give sugestions ?
You can potoshop it and please explain to me the steps


D70, Nikon 18-70mm (18 mm) F/6.7 1/15 sec, ISO 1600

Danke !

[wulf]

The first thing I would do is rotate the picture so that the horizontal lines run flat rather than at a straight angle.

I also notice that the image shows signs of heavy JPEG compression. Are you working from a higher quality original? I assume so but, if not, straightening up is probably about as far as you can go with this picture: further post-processing will make the compression artifacts more obvious still.

Wulf

[cipoet]

Yes, i only resize the image from 2000 px to 600 px, so that i can upload it here and everyone can access it smoothly

no further modification applied.

I have tried to adjust the higlights, curve, brightness, contrast etc. but it just end up totally awfull

anyone can give me more suggestion or should i just, 'give up' ? *sigh !*

[jiminyClickit]

cipoet,

It's not going to be easy to make this look as good as taking another photo would, but the silhouette can be brought out some.



Notice in the Flickr larger view, how much lighter the gallery area is. If you're OK with that lightness, the profile will stand out as one of several layers. If you have done any post-processing, this will probably make sense. If not, you could find a photo retoucher near you.

Using your dark original as the base (after leveling horizontally), layer 2 will be lightened, contrasted, maybe sharpened as in example and applied as Overlay. Layer 3 is lightened to the point that you can see clearly enough to erase around man's silhouette (and edges of bench, bench legs) accurately, and remove everything else from that layer. When erased to a soft-edged profile, darken to black, apply layer as Darken.

Top of bench cushion will require some finesse to balance tones between light reflections on edge nearest gallery and black edge facing viewer. If you can leave just the slightest lighter outline around man's silhouette, it will look less like cut-and-paste.

This is not PhotoShop, so terms and steps are generic. A steady hand and some time will save your photo if you can't retake it.

[KagoGrl]

I'm sorry I don't have any suggestions on how to enhance the sillouette, I just wanted to stop in to say that I like what you were trying to accomplish with the shot and it's a shame it didn't turn out as you'd intended.

Even if you can't get it the way you want through post-processing, I'm sure you'll be aware of what went wrong when you attempt the shot again in the future.

Good luck!