How would u fix this picture?

[Pattyhm73]

i love my son's xpression, he was so amazed to see water fountains at sixflags magic mountain, i took the picture with my lil' ol coolpix camera, but it came out to bright, i tried adjusting the brightness/contrast, but no success to better the picture, what would u do to make it look better?
thnx

[deleonphotographyvideo]

Let me know if I did a little for your Son picture

[cytime1000]

If you have Photoshop adding a duplicate layer and changing the blend mode to multiply will bring back some of the image that is not completely blown out. Sometimes adding multiple multiply layers helps then lowering the opacity to taste.

[12stones]

Patty, I like a lot of contrast, so here's a level and curves adjustment. I'm on an uncalibrated monitor so...

[bluman95]

I used cytime1000's techinique above as well as D.J. technique from this thread:

http://www.texasphotoforum.com/forum...=fix+blown+sky

If you can send a higher rez image, we can give you a better result.

[kronos2818]

Originally Posted by Pattyhm73

i love my son's xpression, he was so amazed to see water fountains at sixflags magic mountain, i took the picture with my lil' ol coolpix camera, but it came out to bright, i tried adjusting the brightness/contrast, but no success to better the picture, what would u do to make it look better?
thnx

I did thre layers with different curves settings from light to dark and just erased what I did not like feom each layer.

[tjones0214]

Patty, can you PM or post a link to the original, high-res version? You're going to get a lot of banding and noise with us trying to fix a low-res version with any type of curves/levels adjustment. I don't know if there's going to be a single fix. As with the above, it'll likely be a combination of techniques. Just let us know. -Travis

[erisian pope]

All I have access to here at work is Photoshop Elements, but I would recommend playing around with a channel-mixer adjustment layer to convert it to black and white. I find that blown-out highlights are much less unpleasant in a B&W picture. The benefit to the channel-mixer method of converting to B&W is that you can adjust the intensity of each color channel (R G and B) and end up with a great amount of contrast and some good strong blacks to counter-balance the whites and still have the picture look like a "regular" B&W picture (I mean not look 'funky').

[Pattyhm73]

Originally Posted by tjones0214

Patty, can you PM or post a link to the original, high-res version? You're going to get a lot of banding and noise with us trying to fix a low-res version with any type of curves/levels adjustment. I don't know if there's going to be a single fix. As with the above, it'll likely be a combination of techniques. Just let us know. -Travis

ys i havethe original, i'll send it to u later tonite

[Pattyhm73]

thnx everyone for the attemps.
u know christian, i didnt try B&W, i have so may techniques now to xperiment with.
all u guys are awesome!!!!

[luis_relampago]

Here is my rendition using a technique that involves curves, masks and cloning. Also color changes in LAB. I hope you like it.

[Pattyhm73]

all the attemps are better than the original pic, i guess that harsh light on his cheek is killin it lol, well that means i have to sacrafice myself and make another trip to magic mountain hahhaa

[sniperkittie]

My take. As with the others, I used various mask techiques with adjustments in levels, contrast, brighness and few more. But I also tinted the wash out on the face and sharpened the image. As well as smoothing the skin a little.