How to lighten the background of a picture in CS5

[squatch97401]

I took a potrait type of picture with a flash.  The people are ok, the background is to dark.  How can I lighten the background.  In the past when I took pictures for our awards, I used the blur method because I didn't lie the busy background.  The background style on these pictures are ok.  I just have a picture that I want to lighten the background.

thanks

Mike

[Guest]

Depends on the picture.  Sometimes you can Image/adjustments/shadow-highlights.

If not you wll probably have to select background with a tool like Quick Select and then use Image/adjustment/ighten

If not too larg of an area you could use the dodge tool.

Probably 23 others ways as well.

[Jeff Arola]

One way is to make a selection of the people, inverse the selection, turn the layer to a smart object and use Image Adjustments>Shadows/Highlights.

[squatch97401]

here is the picture.

[Noel Carboni]

Frankly, from what I can see of that image I'd say that you should just lighten the whole picture.

Another idea:  Try the Image - Adjust - HDR Toning feature on this one.

We've gone over how to select/mask people and do things to the background separately before, haven't we?

-Noel

[squatch97401 · Accepted solution]

I will have to look into the HDR Toning. 

Yes we have done the select/mask and blurr the background.  On this one I wanted to leave the background.  Do all of my earlier post on how to do things stay in the forum or should I print them for future use.  I do go back to them

thanks

Mike

[Jeff Arola]

Here's a very rough example using image>adjustments> shadow/highlights:

Message was edited by: R_Kelly

[Noel Carboni]

The things you post here pretty much stay here forever.  You just have to find them.    Google actually does a pretty good job of it...

Google this, for example:  squatch mask background noel site:adobe.com

-Noel