Darkening specific parts of a photo

[Sinop]

GIMP Version: 2.10.18
Operating System: Windows
GIMP Experience: New User

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I have an old color photo that shows two people near a garden. While the rest of the colors are nice, one of the faces is bleached out. Is there a way to specifically darken the faces some, the man's shirt, and maybe the white flower in front of them? Thanks!

[dinasset]

On the white part there is no much "texture".
My poor try with curves.

aTry.png (1.88 MiB) Viewed 4238 times

[Sinop]

Thanks!

[Vincent]

There is no more info left in the blown out parts, so I could only darken them a little.

[Vincent]

BTW, I also used the curves tool. If you only want to work on the lighter parts of an image, create an anchor point around the middle and only bring the upper right point down on the vertical scale on the right. See picture.

I also used a mask of a grey scale copy of the image to make the selection of the brighter parts even more precise. (Duplicate layer, right click on the layer the the layers TAB, 'Add Layer Mask' and then 'Greyscale copy of layer'.

[Sinop]

Thanks Vincent!

[Vincent]

And with a little more work I can come to this. I really like how much detail dinasset got out of the faces. I can't get as much out of it, but I think it is better than my first attempt now.

[racer-x]

The whites are too far blown out, but here is an attempt using Curves and a mask.

blown-out.jpg (882.22 KiB) Viewed 4187 times

[Vincent]

@racer-x Nice detail in the faces. Is there something particular you've done to achieve that?

[racer-x]

No, just basic curves adjustment.

curves.jpg (247.25 KiB) Viewed 4124 times

[Vincent]

Cheers!