🚀 go-pugleaf

"DaveC" <me@privacy.net> wrote in message
news:0001HW.BE331099002A9BD0F02845B0@news.individual.net...
> I've been given a color jpg image of 475 KB to print. It is a portrait,
taken
> with a FjuiFilm S5000 digital camera in flash mode, indoors, with a dark
> background but with some bright incandescent ceiling lamps. The image is
960
> x 1280 and has an sRGB color space.
>
> The image seems quite flat. Whenever I attempt to increase brightness or
> contrast, several areas of highlight immediately "solarize" (saturate?).

These controls should be used sparingly and after all else!!

> Or is there an easier trail I should be going down?

Have you tried levels? that should be the first port of call?
And as you have CS you could try The Highlights & Shadow control (expanded)-
that can be quite successful with a flat image.
I've no doubt that Curves could do the trick also, but personally I find
that difficult to use.
There is also another method involving copying the layer, inverting and
blurring and using in overlay mode, but I cannot find the exact details of
that at the moment!!