any Photoshop tweaks to recognise elements in this photo/painting?

[Lee^-]

Hi everyone

I have a school project going on and I must recognize what actually in this picture; I've gone to the place where the image is and practically being an old painting (and in need of restauration) and few lightning available, all you see is almost pitch black;

I tried taking various pics (with a non-prof. digital camera) including non flash/ slow shutter+flash etc
and this is the best of them all;

I was wondering if any Photoshop-knowledge user is willing to spend 2min to try and tweak the image as best as possible; I tried adjusting the brightness and contrast but unfortunately still no good...

any form of help is appriciated; and the result can either be posted back here or sent to my email (berserk@itt.net.mt) , as you prefer.

Thanks
Lee

http://img180.imageshack.us/img180/4779/paintinguu4.jpg

[Gatts]

I have a school project going on and I must recognize what actually in this picture; I've gone to the place where the image is and practically being an old painting (and in need of restauration) and few lightning available, all you see is almost pitch black;

...what? I'd be happy to try and get some better colors and whatnot, but I'm not sure what you mean.

edit: I tried tweaking some stuff, but it didn't come out any better, so sorry dude. :( I guess it's just a really shitty picture :P

[Lee^-]

hmm in few words i went to see the painting in front of me
but the available light + the painting conditions are awefull

so basically photograph + photoshop has to do the trick :/

I've been trying playing with hues levels and what not, and more or less (after going blind) i'm somehow recognizing some parts...

oh its ok
thanks neways ^^

[jrr]

throw a curve in there, it looks from my naked eye that there may be some detail in your red channel. there's no way you can get a super clear image out of that , the photo is just too small. but you can definitly see the elements of the image if you just fudge with the curves. maybe a channel mixer to put some detail in your geen and blue channel

[soul8o8]

1. I checked the histogram and as you can see the image has too much red in it. I fixed this the quick'n dirty way I just went with Auto Correct Colors.

http://img291.imageshack.us/img291/333/picture1um7.png

http://img156.imageshack.us/img156/4358/picture2yo3.png

2. Next I decided to remove the border and the candles around the painting. I felt they were tricking my eyes too much.

http://img440.imageshack.us/img440/8893/picture4av9.png

3. I took a closer look at the image data at hand. It is quite clear the the Blue channel contains the most garbage (glares from som window probably.) The red channel seems to contain the most information about the painting. (The green was kinda inbetween.)

Red Channel:
http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/8943/picture5me9.png
Blue Channel:
http://img54.imageshack.us/img54/3118/picture7ff6.png

4. Time to get to work. First I upped the lightness with a Levels.

http://img54.imageshack.us/img54/1429/picture9pk3.png

5. Now I copied the data in the Blue channel and put it in a new layer. Then I inverted it and used as multiply layer (to remove the blue glares.) I tweaked the inverted layer with a Curves until i got a smooth result.

http://img407.imageshack.us/img407/5197/picture10xp5.png

6. Now with a more normalized image I could go at it with Curves.

http://img401.imageshack.us/img401/214/picture11gt2.png

7. Next thing was to get rid of the grains. I chose to copy the image and move to Lab mode. Now I could blur the color channels without affecting the lightness channel. Added a Stylize->Diffuse to the Lightness channel as it is an oil painting I think I got away with it :)

http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/1926/picture12vx1.png

8. Just some final Curves and I'm done. Hm guess you could get some more data out of that green channel. Anyway, this is as good as I can get it - hope it helped :)

http://img474.imageshack.us/img474/24/picture13aj1.png

[Lee^-]

Holy -!!

I can't stop gazing to the process; i've read it like 10 times and I'm still amazed. I was already amazed of how the camera got certain details as with my naked eye I could see nothing; but seeing your final result.....(gazes once again)

big big thanks for your time; I really appriciate it; and sure I can see more details now <3

thanks once again

[soul8o8]

:) np
hey I always enjoy a challange :D