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Lady in Red recoloured

Little Girl

What a cutie!

[Pelican]

Ready for some critique. First though, The Metalica sweater. I don't know why its green. It just turned that color as I went and if I try to remove the green, it turns purple. Also, The sweater has only reached the add clone marks stage and will be contoured soon.

I'm having troubles with the skin tones. It seems that all my tricks for getting it right just go orange in the shadows. Ideas??? The skin tones in the original look smoother...Grrrr

Let me know what you think. I have existing layers that can take this picture elsewhere pretty easily.



Edited cuz I forgot the original.

[zinger]

Hey Curtis,

With Photoshop there are always many ways to skin that cat. I am assuming you are using Photoshop. When you say you are getting a color shift in the shadows I would first go to Image/Adjustments/Color Balance (or just control+B) and check the shadows box and play with the sliders. But, you probably have already tried that.

As for the grainy skin, Dupe the layer, Filter/Blur/Surface blur (try radius 2 Threshold 10), layer mask with "alt" to give you a black mask and the with a soft white brush about 80% Opacity, brush over the skin areas. This method works pretty well. There are many skin smoothing techniques out there. I think one of the most inventive techniques was a guy using Noise Ninja to give skin a good smoothing while still maintaining a nice realistic texture.

I don't know how you do it, but your ability to extract facial features out of a pool of ooze amazes me in your other restorations.

Good Luck!

[Pelican]

Hey Curtis,

With Photoshop there are always many ways to skin that cat. I am assuming you are using Photoshop. When you say you are getting a color shift in the shadows I would first go to Image/Adjustments/Color Balance (or just control+B) and check the shadows box and play with the sliders. But, you probably have already tried that.

As for the grainy skin, Dupe the layer, Filter/Blur/Surface blur (try radius 2 Threshold 10), layer mask with "alt" to give you a black mask and the with a soft white brush about 80% Opacity, brush over the skin areas. This method works pretty well. There are many skin smoothing techniques out there. I think one of the most inventive techniques was a guy using Noise Ninja to give skin a good smoothing while still maintaining a nice realistic texture.

I don't know how you do it, but your ability to extract facial features out of a pool of ooze amazes me in your other restorations.

Good Luck!

Great! Thats what I love about PS. Sometimes its great to feel that you have so much force and power behind you and othertimes, well, you're wondering how many holes in the boat there are that need to be plugged before your project sinks! I'll try that!

In the meantime, here's a view with the sweater being black. Looks okay too....

[mschonher]

Curtis,

Well here is yet another WOW!  This is looking just so good.  I love the greenish grey sweater and hat, it's much better than the black.

BTW: I learned a similar technique to Zingers the difference being that to the duped image you apply a gausian blur, then a dust and scratches, then add 7 to 10% enlarged grain without any contrast. Apply the hide all layer mask and using the white soft brush go over the skin.  I've had excellent results with this.  You can adjust the settings as you see fit.

Mary

[cmpentecost]

No red pen needed here!!   

I'd have to say one thing I notice is that in the original damaged photo, their skin colors look like that winter-time pale.  In your revised version, they look more tan.  I'm the first to admit I'm quicker at spotting discrepancies than telling how to fix them.  I don't spend as much time in Photoshop as I would like.  Otherwise Curtis, the photo is turning out beautiful.  Thank you!

Christine

[Juliet]

I think I would definitely make the sweatshirt black.  After all, the band is Metallica.  I don't think they make sweatshirts in any other color.    Other than that, the only other thing I would do is soften the edge of the girl's hair.  I cut the edge of the girl's hair from the original photo and pasted it on to your doctored photo then played around with the hue, saturation and contrast until it matched.  The little whispies make it a little natural.  Other than that, great work!  What a tour de force!

[klassylady25]

What a change!!!  

[Tess (Tassie D)]

Great job on the pic. I wonder if you could make the black sweater not quite so black just so it stands out more?

[Pelican]

Wow!! Thanks!!

Mary, the biggest reason you like the green sweater is cuz you can see it, but Juliet is right. Its a Metallica sweater, so its probably black. I'm going with Tassie and creating some contrast to pull it out of the bg.

Christine, I am so disappointed. 

But you're right. They look much warmer than they're bundled up for. So here's what I did...

I took the blue channel and cleaned it up since it was the best looking thing in the pic. Merging the original was not working at all on this one. Here's the adjusted blue...



As you can see, he's wearing a hoodie. This brings to mind the 'Cake' tune which asks, "How much does it cost to lead your rock and roll lifestyle?"

This guy bought a Metallica hoodie. $$$$$$

Decided to just start recoloring this than fixing the orig. Got so far along and saw it wasn't going to happen satisfactorily and took a copy of the orig (unchanged), put it on top, set the blend to multiply and dropped the opacity to 20%. Instant depth of field. But the skin tones still stunk! So here is where I am now.

I took the original skin parts and pasted them on top of everything. Cleaned up and made adjustments (blue cast adjustment still forthcoming). Next I'll make the sweater black with flashbulb highlights. Here are the new skin tones for now though.



I'll work on the sweater tomorrow. Oh, and Juliet, I will be doing touch-up on her hair as well.

Curtis

[kiska]

Very nice , Curtis!

[Hannie]

Curtis, you have worked wonders with this one! 
I agree that the sweater should be black and with Tess's suggestion of a "less black"sweater.

 

Hannie

[schen]

Curtis,  What a great restoration work.

If you don't mind, I have a little pick.  Her face below her nose has a little more purple tone than the rest of the skin.  I did a -13 on blue of Color Balance and a +22 on Saturation and seemed to pull the skin tone of area closer to the rest.

Shujen

[cmpentecost]

Shujen, you must have been wearing your goggles to see that one!  However, now that I look (without goggles), I see it as well.  Good eye!

Chris

[Pelican]

Thats what the blue cast was I was talking about. The red damaged area in the original ended right there on her face. Thanks Shujen, I'll try those numbers.

[Pelican]

Up close the paint job on the sweater is kinda clumsy looking but at print size (4x6) its not too bad.

Its pretty much done I think, unless you have some suggestions.