Adjust one photo colours/etc to match another

daymobrew

Last week I volunteered to take some school class group photos. One child was not available so I had to take a photo of that child another day and try to insert them into the group photo.

I kept the ISO and aperture the same and I used a grey card and a custom WB. Despite this, the lighting and colouring were very different.
I did some adjustments in GIMP (I don't have Photoshop) but I really don't know what I am doing.

I've attached a tiny section of each photo (no children are identified).

As the background wall and floor was common in both photos, could they have been used to adjust the second photo before inserting it into the first photo?

ED E

If you shot RAW this should be relatively straightforward, assuming the time of day was roughly similar so the lighting direction wont be off and a total giveaway.

Effects

Open the files in camera raw, copy the colour temp and tint values from the original image. Or take a white balance dropper reading from the skirting board and apply to the second image. Does that make sense?

daymobrew

Effects wrote: »

Or take a white balance dropper reading from the skirting board and apply to the second image. Does that make sense?

I didn't shoot in RAW so I didn't have that to copy from.

Based on your white balance dropper suggestion I found a small tutorial that involves finding a white point in the image to set the levels. Using a grey point would also work so maybe I'll leave my grey card somewhere at the edge of the shot for this.

Here's the result (a split image of original/white adjusted).

bullpost

Or do an arty B&W conversion .

ED E

Unfortunately you shot yourself in the foot shooting JPEG. B&W mightnt be a bad compromise but in a year book of 49 colour photos and one B&W it might look like that class died in a tragic accident or something.


Mask the extra child into the original photo, use the background from the "main" shot and just apply layer adjustments until she doesnt look like a glowing alien.

pullandbang

The 2nd photo of the child on their own is under exposed compared to the group.
Up the exposure on it before trying to edit it into the group.

CelticRambler

daymobrew wrote: »

I kept the ISO and aperture the same and I used a grey card and a custom WB. Despite this, the lighting and colouring were very different.

The room lighting is completely different in the two images. There's much stronger contrast (bright sunny day, big school hall windows?) in the "group" photo compared to the individual - look at the reflections on the bench, and the shadow (or lack of it) on the cross-member by the girls foot.

So RAW or JPG, you won't get the background to properly match up without all kinds of photo-editing gymnastics.

Plan B, therefore, would be to put her in a new layer and crop fairly tightly to the girl's outline (easy enough to do in GIMP) but leave just enough of a margin so that you can feather the edge of the selection. After that, keep messing about with colour balance until you get her skin tones to match those of her classmates (assuming she matches them in real life :pac: )

daymobrew

pullandbang wrote: »

The 2nd photo of the child on their own is under exposed compared to the group.

CelticRambler wrote: »

The room lighting is completely different in the two images. There's much stronger contrast (bright sunny day, big school hall windows?) in the "group" photo compared to the individual - look at the reflections on the bench, and the shadow (or lack of it) on the cross-member by the girls foot.

It was a school hall with windows very close to the roof. I think that the daylight was similar both days but the windows may have been blacked when I took the group photo.

Plan B, therefore, would be to put her in a new layer and crop fairly tightly to the girl's outline (easy enough to do in GIMP) but leave just enough of a margin so that you can feather the edge of the selection. After that, keep messing about with colour balance until you get her skin tones to match those of her classmates (assuming she matches them in real life :pac: )

The white balance dropper suggestion from @Effects worked nicely though I created the new image (with tight cropping) over the weekend.

CelticRambler

daymobrew wrote: »

It was a school hall with windows very close to the roof. I think that the daylight was similar both days but the windows may have been blacked when I took the group photo.

The white balance dropper suggestion from @Effects worked nicely though I created the new image (with tight cropping) over the weekend.

My comment about the light(ing) was a statement of fact, not a question! There are reflections in the one picture that are not present in the other; there are intense, well-demarcated shadows in one that are not present in the other. So regardless of what metering you did at the time the lighting was different in a way that would inevitably be impossible to correct afterwards.

To my eye, the cropping is too tight, and it doesn't look like you've used any feathering, giving the image a stereotypically "photoshopped" look (unnaturally abrupt contour on the girl's shoes, a green line up her left thigh/elbow). If you haven't already printed it/sent it off to the school, try blending the image over the bare areas of the bench; and maybe make a third layer with the boy's knee overlying the girl's right leg. Sometimes I find that applying partial transparency with a small fuzzy brush works best on those irregular areas - it mimics the imperfect lines that you get in real life (stray hairs, bits of fluff, etc)

daymobrew

CelticRambler wrote: »

To my eye, the cropping is too tight, and it doesn't look like you've used any feathering, giving the image a stereotypically "photoshopped" look (unnaturally abrupt contour on the girl's shoes, a green line up her left thigh/elbow).

I didn't. My (very inexperienced) aim was to retain as much of the original photo as possible. I'll give feathering a try.