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Photography Question 

Terri Trosclair
 

How can I change black lips to normal?


 
 
I just found your site and I wonder if anyone can help me with this problem?

Lately, some (not all) of my photos have been downloading with the lips turned BLACK! A series of pictures of my 7 yr. old grandaughter opening presents shows two with black lips and three with normal lips.

I'l try and show the examples.

(There is no mention of this problem or solution on my Microsoft Digital Image Pro Software.)


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January 26, 2006

 

BetterPhoto Member
  I hate to say this, But I really need to see this problem. This is a new one on me.


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January 26, 2006

 

Terri Trosclair
 
 
 
I have two example pics if you would like to see them. One with the blackened lips and one without. I'm going to try and upload them here somewhere if I can figure out how.


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January 27, 2006

 

Terri Trosclair
  Two of my examples of the problem are now on my photo page. Any takers to solve the problem?

http://www.betterphoto.com/mgadmin/siteUpdatePhotos.php


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January 27, 2006

 

Brendan Knell
  Maybe you could try and clone the black lips out with ones from a different photo. I personally don't have a clue what could have caused this, other than maybe she ate a black candy?

P.S. the link you posted, doesn't work, it just takes me to the sign in page. You probably took the link from one of your member pages. Also for anyone else that wants to take a crack at it, the photos are in her gallery.


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January 27, 2006

 

Terri Trosclair
  Thank you Brendan K. I kind of thought of doing that.

No, she did not eat black candy. Those type of lips showed up on other family members as well. Very strange. My camera is almost a year old and never had that problem until recently. Maybe it's time for a new one, but economicly unfeasable right now.

I'm sorry you had trouble getting in the gallery. Putting them in was confusing to me.


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January 27, 2006

 

Justin G.
  Are you sure you and your family is alive and not a bunch of ghosts? just wondering ;-) anyways, don't have an answer, just thought i'd be a smart ___ ...


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January 27, 2006

 
- Gregory LaGrange

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  Which family members, and male or female, and who was wearing what? Anybody dressed similar?


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January 27, 2006

 

BetterPhoto Member
  Are you sure you didn't serve blueberry pie or something before you shot these? This is definately a new one on me.


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January 28, 2006

 

Terri Trosclair
  To Justin: I just pinched myself and yes, I am alive but you know when I saw those lips on my grandaughter I thought, "Child of Herman Munster!"

As you can see, the quality of the pictures in general is not the best. Time is not a factor (day-night) because the clicks of the camera corresponded with the opening of a 7 year old's presents. Maybe in nano-minutes and basicly in the same spot of the room.

We were all wearing Christmas-type clothes, (reds) and not eating blueberries or even chocolate at the time. Besides, the lips discoloration occured intermittantly.

I feel bad that I stumped the experts but hopefully there's enough of mystery to spur discussion with other experts and giving an answer as to why this happened.


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January 28, 2006

 

Justin G.
  Something that I just thought of..probalby has nothign to do with while they're black but maybe...just maybe...juuuuuuusstttt maybe... I noticed in the one where her lips are fine, she's turned her face away from everything. the other she is holding a doll box (probalby with those clear plastic fronts). i'm wondering if there's someway that you're camera caught some sort of weird angle of light, totally going haywire? don't know if that's even a possibility but we're left to guesses like that. compare with your other images you said messed up, see if they're holding a box or maybe shiny metallic paper or something and let us knwo.


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January 28, 2006

 

Terri Trosclair
  Justin your thinking is outside the box which probably would explain this but I added two more examples, (1 w/black lips, & 1 w/normal.) and as you can see there is no shiny plastic.

I think I'll go with the wierd, haywire light possibility. It's not much of a good reason, but it juuuuuuusstt might be.

Thank you for trying!


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January 28, 2006

 
- Gregory LaGrange

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  You didn't answer the other questions, so I'll stick with your girl. She wear lip gloss or have a habit of folding her lips inward when she's excited or concentrating?
I'm thinking it's the scarf you're seeing due to lip gloss or saliva making her lips a wet surface.


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January 28, 2006

 

Terri Trosclair
  I thought I did Gregory L. I think by Christmas type outfits I should have specified, lots of Reds mixed with black, navy blue and green.

No, my grandaughter does not wear lip gloss but she does fold her lips inward when she concentrates.

I recieved another clue from someone else, and that is if the Red Eye feature is "on" and you take a picture from a distance it may discolor other parts. Any experience with that?

I'll be going to a birthday party tonight and will do a little experiment with the red eye feature on/off/close/far.


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January 28, 2006

 

TJ Joesph
  gregory....my thoughts exactly!


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January 28, 2006

 
- Gregory LaGrange

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  I wanted to know if any guys had it happen to, that's all. Hence the lip gloss. And if everyone had the same scarf over the shoulders.


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January 28, 2006

 
- Gregory LaGrange

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  I wanted to know if any guys had it happen to, that's all. Hence the lip gloss. And if everyone had the same scarf over the shoulders.


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January 28, 2006

 

Kip T. Berger
 
 
 
Hi Terri,
No answer to why the lips turned that way, but did see refernce from another user in google of lip color being gray with redeye reduction used.
Work-around in photo program for shots you must save.
In your photo program, zoom your view to around 800%, and choose lip area.
Then using your bezier- curve selection tool, trace the outline of the lip.
After making this selection, cut & paste it back into same place(keys control + x=cut; control + v=paste).
using hue & saturation controls, lighten to light color. Using your eyedropper, take sample of color from
one of the normal pictures of her lip. Then use this color to paint in the selection area. After the area is
covered, use your burn tool to darken lower and upper portion of lip to give dimension.
Adjust the selection transparency until it looks "normal", and merge this layer. Use your clone tool
to clean up any spots that got missed in your lip slection. ** Adjusted examples being uploaded. **


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January 28, 2006

 

Kip T. Berger
 
 
 
Hi Terri,
No answer to why the lips turned that way, but did see refernce from another user in google of lip color being gray with redeye reduction used.
Work-around in photo program for shots you must save.
In your photo program, zoom your view to around 800%, and choose lip area.
Then using your bezier- curve selection tool, trace the outline of the lip.
After making this selection, cut & paste it back into same place(keys control + x=cut; control + v=paste).
using hue & saturation controls, lighten to light color. Using your eyedropper, take sample of color from
one of the normal pictures of her lip. Then use this color to paint in the selection area. After the area is
covered, use your burn tool to darken lower and upper portion of lip to give dimension.
Adjust the selection transparency until it looks "normal", and merge this layer. Use your clone tool
to clean up any spots that got missed in your lip slection. ** Adjusted examples being uploaded. **


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January 28, 2006

 

Terri Trosclair
  Eureka, Kip B.! It's like my grandaughter changed back to that sweet, innocent little girl instead of Miss Jeckle and Miss Hyde.

That was wonderful of you to do that! You can be sure I'll follow your "prescription" and apply it to the rest.

On the side comment, my birthday party experiment was a no-show or, no-black lips. I Did the red-eye close/far thing and the lips are normal. Hummm. Now, I did change the batteries and put in fresh ones so maybe that was the difference.

Thank you ALL for your help in this mystery! If I ever hear from Nikon or hear of another hypothetical reason I'll let you know.

Hopefully I can get good enough to participate in posting some photos amongst such illustrious artists such as yourselves. What a treat to go through your galleries!!!


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January 29, 2006

 

Christopher A. Vedros
  Terri,
Just wanted to clarify a little for you or anyone else that may have been following this thread. I think Kip did solve the mystery on this one. Not just with the PhotoShop solution, but with the cause for the black lips.

I think the most likely cause for this was the in-camera red eye "correction" feature. Please don't confuse this with a red eye reduction flash system, which many cameras have. This is an exclusive Nikon feature on some cameras, where the camera analyzes the image after it is shot, and if it determines that the eyes were made red by the flash, it corrects the color of the eyes, much the same way you would do in PhotoShop.

Apparently, the girl's lips looked red enough to the camera to cause it to "correct" them as if they were eyes.

In my searching, I found lots of old comments on forums about how bad the red eye problem used to be on Nikon P&S cameras. Apparently, this in-camera correction feature was Nikon's response to this. Maybe it works very well most of the time, and this situation was a fluke.

Personally, I would turn this in-camera red eye correction feature off. I prefer to correct any red eye that may occur in my image-editing program. That way, I know I can fine tune the correction, and remove the red without ending up with lifeless doll eyes. If you let the camera do it, there's no UNDO button if you don't like how the camera did it.

Chris


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January 30, 2006

 
- Gregory LaGrange

BetterPhoto Member
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  Must analyse a red, high reflective area. Wet lips, natural wet surface of your eye. Fun mystery has been solved.


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January 30, 2006

 

BetterPhoto Member
  DARN! And this thread was getting to be so much fun, too.


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January 30, 2006

 

Terri Trosclair
  Might be fun for YOU, but how do you think I feel having to explain to all my friends that despite appearances my grandaughter is NOT really related to Herman Munster, or has gone "GOTH" at 7 years old! Hahahaha!!!!

Seriously. I can't thank you all enough for your input and especially to Kip for bringing my sweet, innocent grandaughter back. Terri


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January 30, 2006

 

Kip T. Berger
 
 
 
Hi Terri,
Glad to be of some help. Uploading a small mini-pic of your grandaughter for you to use in your gallery if you want.
Hopefully you'll continue to visit and keep us updated on your progress. ps-just use firefox, and you'll be able to save or copy the mini-pic to upload and use for your mini-pic in posts of the forum.


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January 30, 2006

 
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