Retouching a photo of a painting?

BlondeOnBlonde · Posted: Tue Apr 03, 2007 6:41 pm Post subject: Retouching a photo of a painting?

I recently photographed my friend's painting and am very disappointed in my results. The painting was photographed outside in bright noon sunlight with a Nikon Coolpix camera at the highest setting (300 ppi). I am using Photoshop CS2 for Mac OS X. I am unable to reshoot the painting.

When I crop the image and try to auto-correct the color, contrast, and levels, it makes the painting look terrible--completely changes the colors. I realize this is because of my amateur photography skills.

As you can see, the auto-corrected crop does not look very good--too much green. The untouched version of the crop looks ok but it is dull, flat.

Frustrated, I nearly "settled" on the touched-up version of the crop, but then... Let me explain it from the beginning:

1. I cropped the photo (so it is just the painting) and auto corrected it with auto color, auto contrast, and auto levels.
2. I saved it as a tif file.
3. I opened up the newly saved tif file in photoshop.
4. Despite my efforts (read #1) I can still auto correct the color, contrast, and levels indefinitely.

I've spent several hours manually adjusting the individual levels with no luck. When I get something that looks decent on the screen, I do the auto levels command and photoshop ruins it... What I am REALLY concerned about is that this is going to be printed and must look good enough to be blown up.

What can I do to make this painting look good? Is there a plugin I could use that will not change the colors so harshly? (Understand I am unable to reshoot the painting.)

Your advice is greatly appreciated!

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