question? lighting a face(post-processing)

[sarahle]

Exif Data

Digital Rebel XT
100mm lens
f/3.5
1/80 second
ISO-100

I took this photo last evening in a huge quick hurry...we were late for a graduation ceremony, it was starting to rain, and my daughter was packing for a week-long Disney trip. There was no time for comfort, laughter, or double-checking the work in-lens outside.
The main reason for the photo was to get a picture of the dress..but, now after looking at the photo, it's an okay shot, not great, but I would feel better about it, if I could get the shadows off of her face and that part cleaned up a little bit. Can someone please give me some idea of how I could do this in PS5? I've tried just using the light filter but that's not working well. This is one of those photos that has a number of teachable aspects and I'm trying to be taught. Thanks for any help.

[edbayani]

many ways to do this. one is, with levels, use the middle eyedropper and click on the dark part of her dress to correct the color. then add a new layer and with the eyedropper tool, click on the lightest part of her cheek to copy the color. use a very soft brush at 5% opacity. adjust the size of the brush to cover just the shadows and start brushing on the new layer on the shadows of her face. you click on the new layer to see the difference. flatten. with the same soft brush but this time set to 100% press Q to enter quick mask. brush the eyes and exit quick mask. press ctrl H to hide the selection, and with levels slide the right slider to the right till the eyes are lightened a bit. deselect. finally sharpen a bit since it is a bit soft.
hope this can help you.

[sarahle]

Thank you for that, I really appreciate it. The photo was not an important one but I still wanted to fix that problem...it just bothered me.