Photo coloring - If you know anything about it, please look at this question.?

Question

My dad recently purchased some photo prints. Upon their arrival, he was extremely disappointed with the colors, which had appeared much more vibrant in the web images he saw online before making his purchase. Due to a long detailed and irrelevant story, he does not want to return the images or ask for his money back, so here's my question.

Is there ANY way to add vibrancy back into the images? These are glossy-finished prints, approximately 16 x 20 in size, maybe larger. They don't appear to be actual photographic prints, just enlarged images - most likely printed off at Kinkos. Any help or suggestions would be appreciated. And if you need more details, just let me know. Thanks, everyone!

Well, after speaking to my dad again, I can now say without a doubt that the photo posted on the web site was digitally edited to make to colors more vibrant - that seems a bit devious and under-handed to me, but it does explain why my dad didn't get the print he was expecting. We haven't decided what route to go, but I wanted to say thank you to everyone who responded. I'm going to do my best to select the answer that was the most useful as the "Best Answer", but I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who lresponded. Your posts were all wonderful.

Answer 1

I would say scan them and edit them, but that is much easier said than done considering the prints are very large... If you able to use a scanner that size, i.e. at school or work, go for it and then use even a basic photoshop to increase the saturation, mess with the hue, etc.

Remember to save as a TIFF, as Jpegs tend to lose a bit of quality every time you save...

Answer 2

Prints are always less vibrant than electronic or slide images because the latter are generating light and prints only reflect it. Depending on how your monitor is set up, it may make images even more brilliant than the image maker had in mind. I regularly go back to images I have made for web use and lighten them up when I find that they seem dark compared to others on the same web page.
The suggestion to scan them and use various tools to enhance them or pay someone who already knows the software to do so, is about as good as can be done but trying out the various tools is time consuming and a knowledgeable person may be costly.

Answer 3

ALthough the above answers have some good ideas I think if you did this you'd be breaching someones copyright - i.e. breaking the law, so you may not get a photo lab to help.

I think you should talk to whoever you get them from first and see if they lookas they should. If they are a commercial outlet then they may want to look at their quality control, because no doubt your Dad won't be buying there again.

Web colours ought to be inferior to your print as they contain only 256 colours, as compared to millions on a typical print - so your fathers monitor may be out as well... to solve this try a monitor calibrator.

Answer 4

You can scan them and use a program like Photoshop or (The GIMP - Free as opposed to PS) to enhance the colors by a number of ways. I'd suggest using layers and hand coloring over each area. Then change the view type of the layers. No matter what program you choose to use it's going to require some experience in photo editing.

Answer 5

Scan them, use photoshop to enhance color saturation and perhaps twiddle the brightness/contrast a little too.

If you want email me, and we can arrange for me to do one of them for you and email it back, so you can work out whether it's going to work or not. It's actually very simple if the image is suitable. Lidy :o)

Answer 6

The ..."ONLY"...way it is "MANUAL" retouching by using special watet colors 4 photographs; which will corect: the color; hue; & sharpness...then....u can aply a glaze after its dry; or u can use a havy glaze 2 create texture.......

Answer 7

you could try laminating them them