too gloomy for marriage day?

[ecate78]

Hello!

Last week a couple of friend of mine got married in a very private civil ceremony. They already have the photos they wanted for the day (done by another amateur photographer friend), but I had the opportunity of taking one of the bride during the supper. The photo is really not exceptional but it's the only one I have and at the beginning it was badly underexposed (all black image). I tried to get a better image and ended with this black and white version but I feared it resembled too much a condolences card...
P.S. I am real beginner when it comes to post-processing...



So I tried to brighten it up with a bit of red which in asian culture means joy and bring good luck.



What do you think ? Would you give it to the married couple? Should I change the post-processing ? Do you know a tutorial that explains how to better save badly underexposed photos without raw file?
Any advice very welcome. Thanks for looking.

[S.Culpepper]

I would play with the exposure, brightness and contrast in photoshop to see if you can get details to stand out more, and i also think that the red would look better if it were more subtle. but, that's just me

[ecate78]

Originally Posted by S.Culpepper

I would play with the exposure, brightness and contrast in photoshop to see if you can get details to stand out more, and i also think that the red would look better if it were more subtle. but, that's just me

Thanks! I will try your advice

[angeleyes216]

She is very pretty and i like the pose very much...i played with it a little to get out the noise/graininess.

[ecate78]

Thank you angeleyes216! I like the way you did it! The color is just perfect. Will try it.

[angeleyes216]

do you have picnik or any editing programes that touch up skin? I used the new picnik touch up tools and added a slight air brushing and colour.

[ecate78]

Originally Posted by angeleyes216

do you have picnik or any editing programes that touch up skin? I used the new picnik touch up tools and added a slight air brushing and colour.

I have photoshop and some grain plug-in. Is it enough? With the example you gave me I can ask a friend how to reproduce it.

[angeleyes216]

you should be able to remove the grain with photoshop and fix the colour...i hope this helped...i am also still learning so you might have a few others who know more than me