Skip to main content
Curtisj2
Curtisj2
Participating Frequently
April 20, 2023
Answered

Need help please. I am stumped with this leopard!

  • April 20, 2023
  • 3 replies
  • 3651 views

Look at the attached JPG of a leopard (the original FYI was a RAW file). You can see there was grass close to the camera which impacted the image as it created a greenish tint on the animal's back. Is there an easy way to remove it so the fur is a consistent color and contrast?

This topic has been closed for replies.
Correct answer jefbr

Possible, yes. Quick and/or Easy? Depends.

 

Sample attached of where you can get using these techniques:*

  1. Make a mask of the area with lower contrast (=where the grass is)
  2. Use contrast/brightness adjustment layers to equalize the contrast**
  3. Use selective color to bring the colors closer together

 

If all else fails pick the desired color from the good part of the fur and paint it on a fresh new layer set to hue. 

(definitely not the way to go, it's not professional)

 

* Took about 10 minutes of work and 15 years of learning***

** The Unsharp mask filter can help you recover some of the contrast as well.

*** I'm not saying it's amazaballs, but that's what it took for me

3 replies

J
jefbrCorrect answer
Inspiring
April 21, 2023

Possible, yes. Quick and/or Easy? Depends.

 

Sample attached of where you can get using these techniques:*

  1. Make a mask of the area with lower contrast (=where the grass is)
  2. Use contrast/brightness adjustment layers to equalize the contrast**
  3. Use selective color to bring the colors closer together

 

If all else fails pick the desired color from the good part of the fur and paint it on a fresh new layer set to hue. 

(definitely not the way to go, it's not professional)

 

* Took about 10 minutes of work and 15 years of learning***

** The Unsharp mask filter can help you recover some of the contrast as well.

*** I'm not saying it's amazaballs, but that's what it took for me

    J
    jefbr
    Inspiring
    April 21, 2023

    Ooh! Another worthwhile approach is to look at your channels (red, green, blue) and with a feathered lasso make selections of low contrast areas and balance those out using brightness/contrast or exposure/gamma adjustments.

     

    That way you only have to worry about the problem on grayscale level.

    The quality of the result will depend on the accuracy of your work.

    It works really well if you want omgbbq quality but takes time and accuracy.

     

      Curtisj2
      Curtisj2Author
      Participating Frequently
      April 21, 2023

      Thank you sooo much for taking the time to help me! Much apreciated!

      Leslie Moak Murray
      Community Expert
      Leslie Moak MurrayCommunity Expert
      Community Expert
      April 20, 2023

      Here's my  quick try:

       

      Curtisj2
      Curtisj2Author
      Participating Frequently
      April 20, 2023

      Leslie,

      Can you tell me what you did? I still see the darkened spots but the greenish area appears untouched.

       

      Thanks for any help!

      Curtis

        Leslie Moak Murray
        Community Expert
        Leslie Moak MurrayCommunity Expert
        Community Expert
        April 21, 2023

        Yes I see now I didn't get all the green out, but I can. I was just doing it in a hurry. Here's what I did:

        -Duplicate the layer (always leave an original untouched version)

        -Image>Auto Tone, Image>Auto Contrast

        -Layer>Duplicate Layer

        -Then on this dupe layer, I selected around the greenish area with the Lasso Tool.

        -With the Magic Wand selected, choose "Refine Edge" from the menu above and feather it

        -Edit>Copy>Paste

        Now you have the greenish area by itself. I played around with Hue/Saturation to desaturate it, then used the Dodge Tool very lightly because the white area was darker than the rest of the image, then I used the Burn Tool lightly to darken the spots. I see now that there's still some greenish hue at the top, but my method can take care of it. At the end, merge the top two layers leaving the original bottom layer untouched in case you need to refer to it later.

        Also, before I began, I did Edit>Auto Tone on the whole image and dodged abd sharpened the eyes a bit.

          Abambo
          Community Expert
          AbamboCommunity Expert
          Community Expert
          April 20, 2023

          No, there is no easy and fast solution. You can try to paint the colour, but as I have seen, it also impacted the focus, which will be much more difficult to address. 

           

          And as you have hit Actions and Scripting: there is no automatic removal, except to try content aware options.

           

          I however cannot say, that it is disturbing, as the face is the eye catcher. You could try to desaturate green in Lightroom to weaken the greenish appearance. 

          ABAMBO | Hard- and Software Engineer | Photographer
            Terms & ConditionsAccessibility statement
            Using the community Terms of use Privacy Cookie preferences Do not sell or share my personal information ad choicesAdChoices