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Love Birds, Part Deux

Couple

Oval frame

Green growings

[Johnboy]

I have been slowly working on this and tonight I thought before I put a lot of time in I would check for further ideas. For all of you who have been missing white spots, they got dumped into this photo. Plus there has been some hazy fog put in for added measure.

Original


Now you know what I am talking about.

I have worked using mostly the patch tool to get it this far. Mostly on the left and right sides and across the top of the box down to the opening. The real problem comes in the lettering at the top. While I have removed the white spots there is that haze that doesn't let the black in the lettering come through expect in spots.

Patch tool work


It may not be evident in the above photo, but there turned out to be a good patch of black in the letter "R" in the middle of the vertical stroke. So I got the brilliant idea of using the healing brush to expand this area. It worked pretty good. So I used the magnetic lasso to outline the letter to make it a selection to keep the color from crossing over. The result doesn't look too bad but not great either. So far I have only done the "R". I am not opposed to continuing the lettering process with the healing tool. My question to ya'll (I lived in Florida & Georgia for a few years in my earlier life) is it going to look OK by continuing what I have done with the healing tool, or is there a better way to proceed? I have been working at 200% so I am seeing some bit mapping on the letter edges which may not show when it is printed. I am also concerned that there may be some color mixing (for a lack of a better term) where the red and black meet in the lettering. I am thinking I may get some areas where the fog will not come out of the letter corners especially in the red background. I have some of  that now in the inside loop of the "R".

Healing brush results


The photo size is 3.5x3.5 inches (8.89 x8.89 centimeters if I have converted correctly).

Also any suggestions on handling the "fog"?

Thanks for the help.

Johnboy

[glennab]

Hi JB

I've played around with your lettering, and I couldn't find any way to fight the fog.  If you're comfortable using the pen tool, you could trace around each of the letters (there aren't that many).  Split the difference between the areas where the red and black overlap. Then you could turn the path into a selection and save the selection.  Do the tweaks you need to on the red, then load the selection and fill it with a rich black.  If the edge is too hard, you could put a very slight blur on it, or feather the selection by a pixel or two before you fill it.  With the type on a separate layer, you can play with the edges until you're happy with them, then merge the layer with the rest of the image. As you mentioned, there's so much spill-over between the red and black, that I don't see another way to easily get a good selection on the letters.

If you aren't accustomed to using the pen tool, you're welcome to send me the file (e-mail is in my profile) and I'll trace the lettering for you and send you back the file with the path and selection.

G

[Mhayes]

Hi John,

This is kind of a quick and dirty by using the magic wand and the regular brush. I used the magic wand set to a 32 tolerance and touch in the lettering until I got all of Response. I then hit Ctrl (Cmd) J and put in on its own layer. Hit your Ctrl key and click on the thumbnail of your new layer (to make sure that that you bring up the selection again), go up to the paintbucket making sure that black is your foreground color, and then touch inside your lettering. That should fill the lettering and if it looks too dark, lower the opacity. For the coloring around the lettering, I would use the regular brush and above on the opacity of the brush, choose darken and paint your "fog" area in with the good sampled colors. While I am using the brush, I am sampling the good color around each letter. Don't use just one color sample for the entire area. I very seldom use the magic wand, but in this case it came in handy to also fill in some of the background. For very small letters, it helps to have a tablet, since it is easier to trace with your pen the fine lettering. Glenna's way sound fine too.



Margie

[Johnboy]

Glenna & Margie,

Thanks for the suggestions. I'll give them a try. I never gave a thought to using the pen tool or the magic wand for outlining. It has been a while since I used either one. Sometimes you get so comfortable using certain tools that you forget the rest of the arsenal that is available. I'll work on that and post the results later.

Thanks again.

Johnboy

[Mhayes]

Johnboy,

I think the pen tool is great, but in this case Glenna and I are coming from two different perspectives. The pen tool that both of you are using is from PhotoShop's tool box, which is a life safer and very precise. When I mentioned the pen tool, it was the pen that comes with the Wacom tablet. Before I filled the letters with black, I went in and painted in the light spots within the lettering so that when I used the magic wand it would pick up the complete letters.  I especially like the pen for tracing over the small lettering on the left and the date stamp by the window.  On those I used the paint brush (pen rather than a mouse) and lowered the opacity as needed.

Margie

[glennab]

Margie, you're so right about the fact that we have different perspectives as to how to go about this particular repair.  Your being a photographer and my being a graphic designer means that we probably regularly use very different tools and each look at the job in a divergent light.  It's something I love about our forum.  There are hundreds of ways to do one thing, and nearly as many tools in Photoshop to accomplish a great restoration.  JB can pull from our hundreds of years of combined experience (I'll claim most of those years!) and use what works best for him.

I know many people are not at all comfortable with the Photoshop pen tool, because it is so precise, but I find that in a complex or fuzzy-colored image, it takes me less time to make a path, do the selection and carry on than battle with undecipherable pixels.  That's because I work with vector images all the time, and sometimes (thankfully not often any more) I have to take a very questionable logo, scan it from a piece of TP (not really, but close), and then recreate it for a number of uses.  That means the easiest and most user-friendly result is a path, rather than the wand or any of the other "magic" and "time-saving" functions.

All of you photographers probably work exclusively with pixels, so your immediate bent is to attack an image from a rasterized (is it legal to use that word on the forum?) perspective.  Since we're working on photos, that's usually the way to go and makes all the sense in the world.

I've said it hundreds of times by now, I'm sure, but I so love what we do!  Always something new to learn.

Cheers

G

[Johnboy]

I just came in from doing some yard work and thought I would check in to see what was going on.

Margie, I am more with Glenna than you on this one as I don't have a Wacom tablet. So I am mousing those selections. Patients pays off. It may be a couple of days before I can get back to this but I am sure between your suggestions I'll whip this one. I already have the white spots out of the lettering as you can see in the second photo I posted. It is mostly "fog" left in those letters.

I printed off your earlier responses so I have them at hand when I start again.

Thanks again for the followup.

Johnboy

[Mhayes]

Johnboy, use whatever tools you feel the most comfortable with and the ones that will get the job done.

Glenna, I’m sure that we both look at things in a divergent light, but the fact that I am photographer has little to do with why I chose to use the Wacom pen on the lettering. When you look at the letters, it becomes clear they were done by hand. Take a look at the both e’s--they are not the same. The print is not precise and should I use the pen tool, my edges would look very crisp, which means that I would likely have to use some sort of blur so that they wouldn't stand out.

As far as my being a photographer and only used to pixel pushing, take a look at the OPR Handbook and look really close at the print. Does it look like pixels that have been rasterized? If you say yes, take a closer look, because I did all of my text in Adobe Illustrator so that I would have nice sharp vectors.

I too have had to use the pen tool to recreate a sharp logo for a report by a Wildlife & Park's job applicant that needed the Wyoming State Park logo on his presentation. This was lots of fun doing the bucking horse. I’m probably different than your normal “photographer,” in that I am comfortable with both the pen tool in PhotoShop, Illustrator, and Freehand. I would say that Freehand has the better pen tool, but since Adobe bought out Macromedia, it was the end of the line for Freehand.

Cheers,

A Photographer Who Can Go Either Way! 

[Johnboy]

Margie,

I had some time today to work on the photo for a short while. I think your method is going to work. I did the "Response" and also worked on the red in a couple of the letters. I had to fill in a few places on some of the letters where the magic wand didn't make a complete connection. When I added those areas with the magic wand it gave me more than I really wanted, and didn't look good. So I started over a couple of times. Since it was so easy it wasn't a hard decision. Thanks for the help. I'll keep working and post more later.

Glenna, thanks for your offer to help outline the letters. It looks like I am on my way for now.

Johnboy

[glennab]

Hi JB

I'm glad you're having success with your lettering.  I look forward to seeing the results!

Margie, I didn't mean to cast aspersions on your knowledge of, or ability to use, vector art or to catch the difference.  What I was trying to do was offer an alternate way of creating the lettering if other methods either weren't working or were taking too long.  Once a path is created and a selection made, that selection can be blurred, grunged, or whatever needs to be done to make it work in the photo and then filled with color, texture or any combination that works.  If the art is on a separate layer, a blending mode could probably make it look very similar to the original and without any hard edges.

I'm a totally "outside the box" person, so many of my techniques are off-the-wall, but I want to offer them if I think they might be a viable approach to an issue like JB's lettering.  That's my story and I'm stickin' to it!

G

A Graphic Designer Who Can ALSO Go Either Way!  Whoo hoo!

[Mhayes]

Glenna, no problem or offense taken, just wanted to show that;

All of you photographers probably work exclusively with pixels,. . .

doesn't always fit. It looks like with a mouse, JB might have more luck with your suggestion.

Margie

[Johnboy]

I have been working on those dreaded spots. Once I got started I just kept going on the red box. Margie, I followed your suggestion about the lettering and the red painting. Now it is check up time for what has been done so far. Only the letters, the black bar, and red has been painted from the top down to the bottom of the window on both sides. The bottom of the box has not been painted only patch tooled to get a handle on the white spots.



Thanks for your help.

Johnboy

[Mhayes]

Hi Johnboy,

The top is looking good. Now all you have left is the bottom and some restoring of the face. I like the patch tool, but only when there is a similar tone to patch from. If you go from a big difference in contrast, say white to dark, the patch tool is not the best choice. For those areas you can clone to fill in the light parts and then patch. If the spots are small, use a small diameter healing brush. On your left hand side you may want to lasso the area above, duplicate and then drag down to fill the space below. I didn't realize until I looked closer, but the lines are from the brick wall. You can mask out what you don't want showing. Hang in there, you are close to the finish line.

Margie

[Johnboy]

Margie,

Thanks for the suggestions. I really hadn't thought of duplicating the wall on the left side. That will certainly save a lot of time. It may work for part of the bottom right between the box and the table leg.

Yes I realized early on that there was a brick wall in the background. It was real fun laying bricks.

I have the face and brown background to fix also.

Johnboy

[Johnboy]

Margie, thanks again for the painting suggestion. It was like turning on the fog lights for other areas. Is this ready to go home?

Original



Homeward bound?


Thanks for the help.

Johnboy