fixing wedding photos

[nsaplayer]

Soo unfortunately a girlfriend of mine ended up with a scam wedding photographer for her wedding. He completely overexposed the whole ceremony (they are no where near salvageable) and then became "unavailable" after the wedding to provide the photos from afterwards and the reception. They had to fight to get a hold of anything at all from this man. That whole fight is over an done with (I am not entirely sure what the result was in terms of legal or financial action) and they at least have the unedited photos. The photos themselves are not good, but some may be salvageable at least to the point where they can have a few worth framing, They would at least like to have one up in their home. MY friend passed them along to me (they are all in RAW format and she was not capable of doing anything with RAW) in the hopes that I could make a few of them presentable.... I not sure where to even start...

If anyone could provide any tips or suggestions on how to help it would be very appreciated.

The ceremony was at sunset on the beach so the sky was a little bright, but the scammer, being a scammer naturally, didn't bother to adjust (I suppose it is lucky that there is anything at all that isn't blown out, considering the ceremony photos were in such a state that even with going to extremes in photoshop you couldn't make out people in the images)


I am sorry for the thumbnails... normally I use flickr ... i think the images can be downloaded from this photobucket album..
Pictures by charliep2007 - Photobucket

[digirebelva]

I played around a bit with what you posted..and you are right a 2 out of the 3 are so blown out that trying to get some detail back is going to bring out some serious color banding..
The shot of the 2 of them with the setting sun has much more ability to be fixed..

You might almost be better to replace the sky if you can..

Even with raws, you are going to have your hands full I think..

[hibou]

Is what's on photobucket really the full size of these images?!?!?! Cell phones have more megapixels. Cripes.

Layer masks are going to be your friend for this. Here's my take. I can't believe how fuzzy the bride and groom are. Sigh.

[LoveDSLR]

Here is my quick attempt on #1.

[edbayani]

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here is what i did to show more details in the wedding gown, and removed the hot spots on their faces. i also cropped the full shot of the couple since it had too much space. i also added some color to the sky.

[jbm1991]

Here are my quick attempts at 1 and 3:





John

[i speak in math]

Originally Posted by nsaplayer

Soo unfortunately a girlfriend of mine ended up with a scam wedding photographer for her wedding. He completely overexposed the whole ceremony (they are no where near salvageable) and then became "unavailable" after the wedding to provide the photos from afterwards and the reception. They had to fight to get a hold of anything at all from this man. That whole fight is over an done with (I am not entirely sure what the result was in terms of legal or financial action) and they at least have the unedited photos. The photos themselves are not good, but some may be salvageable at least to the point where they can have a few worth framing, They would at least like to have one up in their home. MY friend passed them along to me (they are all in RAW format and she was not capable of doing anything with RAW) in the hopes that I could make a few of them presentable.... I not sure where to even start...

If anyone could provide any tips or suggestions on how to help it would be very appreciated.

The ceremony was at sunset on the beach so the sky was a little bright, but the scammer, being a scammer naturally, didn't bother to adjust (I suppose it is lucky that there is anything at all that isn't blown out, considering the ceremony photos were in such a state that even with going to extremes in photoshop you couldn't make out people in the images)]

That sucks. I am curious as to how much they paid for this "photographer". My guess is, like most people, they didn't think paying the big bucks was worth it. A photographer is a photographer, there isn't any skill to it. They wanted to get a bargain by having someone from craigslist do it just as good for $200 bucks and are shocked when they suck.

[BCampbell]

You're asking people to edit JPGs when you have the RAW files. It looks like most of these can be fairly easily salvaged by making two exposures of the RAW file, properly exposing the foreground in one and the sky in the other, and using layer masks to blend them.

[nsaplayer]

Sorry to post and disappear... been a rough few days at work....

You're asking people to edit JPGs when you have the RAW files. It looks like most of these can be fairly easily salvaged by making two exposures of the RAW file, properly exposing the foreground in one and the sky in the other, and using layer masks to blend them.

Yes, I have the Raw files, I just didn't know how to post them online anywhere... regardless, even with the trying to do some dual processing, there really was no detail in the sky to bring back anyways. Also not looking for people to edit the photos for me (unless they really really really want to and just can't live with themselves unless they do) just looking for some suggestions and editing jpgs is probably good enough to get that ball rolling. :-)

This is the best I was able to do with that method (dual processing)...


I took jbm1991's lead and used the sky from a photo I took a few months back. The sky was actually very similar to what the actual wedding sky was like..although it was a sunrise and the wedding was a sunset. This is my first attempt in that method (replacing the background after some dual processing). I just know know what to do about the groom... even working with the RAW files he was just dark and bumping exposure/fill light in ACR didn't do anything pretty really. In real life he isn't that brown... he's kinda pasty actually... maybe a little red in the face (blushing groom I suppose instead of the blushing bride? )

That sucks. I am curious as to how much they paid for this "photographer". My guess is, like most people, they didn't think paying the big bucks was worth it. A photographer is a photographer, there isn't any skill to it. They wanted to get a bargain by having someone from craigslist do it just as good for $200 bucks and are shocked when they suck.

I don't know exactly what they paid, but I know it wasn't much of a bargain. To the "photographer's" credit... not that he deserves any.... he looked legit. He had the gear and put on a good show... maybe he was just a good actor? I really have no idea. I suppose he had some experience.... Like I said, no idea. Its just a pretty crummy situation for the couple and I am trying to help them out.


There are many photos that are in the same state as the one above. some of the close up couples pics (like the one shown in the original post) are completely salvageable... .though a decent amount of retouch is needed in my mind. I am thinking patch tool to get rid of the glare, the band-aid (no idea what it is called in photoshop... but the icon looks like a band-aid so that is what I call it) to fix blemishes, and blur/masking to smooth skin a little. I can do some filters and masking to fix the overall skin tone (maybe warm up the bride and lessen the red on the groom) but evening out skin tones is my nemesis... how do you handle splotchy-ness? I might be completely wrong in my methods, still working at this...


I appreciate the responses, some good ideas/pointers here :-)

Thank you!

[jbm1991]

You could try using a free stock sunset photo from somewhere like stock.xchng - the leading free stock photography site for replacing the sky. Also, do you mean the skin is the wrong colour or only that that certain bits of the skin are the wrong colour?

John