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Damaged Photos

Apres Wedding?

se_view.jpg

a day in the life

[lizO]

What was i THINKing! i thought this looked pretty easy, but i'm thinking now it's a moderate-to-hard and is taking longer than i thought. I've just worked on a few parts here and there; i really don't want it to look painted. If anybody has any great quickie solutions, please advise, otherwise I'll just keep working it spot by spot. (there are sketch lines on a separate layer to help me see where i think a body part should be when i'm close in....)

[Tess (Tassie D)]

Liz we have all said 'what was I thinking'. They look ok on the small photo and then you think 'oh no'!
You're doing a fine job on this. I don't have any suggestions as most of the dust and scrath removal tools end up losing too much definition.
Maybe our Photoshop gurus have some tricks up their sleeves?

[Mhayes]

Liz, I think you have done a great job for what you have done so far. The horse's rump looks perfect! I know that sounds like some punch line, but your colors and the shine are spot on.

One thing you could do that would help us view your work is to paste in the link that would make your photo show up on the forum. As it is now, we have a link to click on, which is OK, but I think the other is easier to view. When you get your photos into Photobucket, look a the 4 lines on posting links. Go to the bottom that says: "IMG Code-Forums & Bulletin Boards." Click on that link and it will turn yellow and say "save" (you can also right click there and do a save). Next you will go back to your post reply on the forum and right click and do a "paste." which now links to your photo and can be seen on the forum. After you have done one photo, go back to Photobucket and do the same thing and paste your link below the first one.

Margie

[Ausimax]

Liz you are off to a great start with this one, it was never going to be easy, I looked at in the gallery, then being the hero I am I ran a mile.

If it is a Polaroid I imagine it is only a 3x3 so work on optimising it for that size, you can spend a heap of time trying to clean up mess that will never be visible at print size, another thing that can help if you are using PS CS2 or above is to resize your image to twice it original size, to work on it then resize it down when you have finished too original size.

Just resize it up in one hit, don't use the old 10% steps method, it isn't needed in CS2. Up-size using Bicubic Smoother and downsize using Bicubic Sharper.

On some areas like the grass you may have to paint it in on a separate layer, sampling the colours for each area and when finished add some noise and then blur.

In general keep on doing what you are its looking great.

Max

[Johnboy]

I would say keep doing what you are doing. It looks good so far. There still looks to be some off color in the photo or maybe it is because of the age of it causing some color degrading. You might try a levels adjustment layer and follow the tutorial Tassie posted or Glenna's tutorial in Photoshop Discussion about color correction. It is usually at this point we belittle the distributors for using the muck machine on the photos before they are downloaded to us.   We all say it has to be that because they never look that bad in their galleries.

Yep my last one I thought would be an easy fix too. But with constant plodding along it turned out OK.

Johnboy

[lizO]

margie-thanks, i was trying to figure out how to make pix appear....

max-i'm on CS3. You mean i don't have to do the 10% thing anymore?

john-boy-i thought i'd get the corrected layers & patches and do color correx at the end. is that backward from 'best practices workflow'?

thanks you all so much. you guys are great.

Liz

[Ausimax]

Thats right Liz, just up-size in one step, it works just great!

Max

[Johnboy]

Liz,

It probably doesn't matter when you do color correcting. I personally like to do it early. To me there is something about bad color that bothers me. So early color correction is part of my work flow. I also find that it can show up the damage to be more or less than expected. For example there may be a colored blotch and once color corrected that blotch may not be as bad as in the original. So it may come down to personal preference on when you do it. The end result is more important that how you get there.

A reason to do color correction early may be when you are adding (painting) color in you may have a better chance to match the color. I really haven't got into doing much of that so I don't have personal experience to draw on. I hope all this make sense. I am sure others out there who have more experience in this area may have a different slant.

Johnboy

[Mhayes]

Liz,

It's always better to do your color correction at the first. I think you are fine and you can follow Max's instruction on the grass. I agree about this probably being a Polaroid and the colors have faded with age. When I look at the color of the paint horse and the people, the color doesn't look bad. Keep going as you have been and it will be ready to send back.

Margie

[GP]

Hi Liz,

and welcome to OPR. I agree with what has been said by everybody else. You did a great job so far. It does not  look painted at all. There is unfortunately no easy and quick fix for damage like that. It's a slow and painful process most of the time, so don't get discouraged!
As for color correction, I do it as my first step of a restoration. It makes it easier to see what is going on and you don't get any nasty surprises later.

Gerlinde

[lizO]

Will you generous folks please take another look at this image? I'm afraid if I continue on it, it looks worser and worser. So i faded the correx layers back to include some more of the original. Also feel like I'm taking too long. Should I return it now or keep on? (plus, it looks worse posted!) Thanks, Liz

[GP]

 liz,
I assume you replaced the first photo with the current one. It's easier to compare if you post your photo again.

You made good progress and it does not look worse. I understand you feel that way, it happens to me too. It is a difficult image to restore and it will take time and patience. Zoom out of the image once in a while and look at it in print size to get a better feel on how it will look like. Sometimes you need to take a break and look with fresh eyes at it the next day.

Don't worry about taking too long. You take as long as you need to finish it. Just keep your gallery manager updated on your progress.

Gerlinde 

[lizO]

Gerlinde-i don't seem to have saved a snapshot at that point. this is pretty close to how it looked at 'interim.' Thanks for your support and hand-holding. Liz

[Ausimax]

Liz, don't give up the ship, you are going great, these photos take a lot of time to restore - its just a case of plodding along until you finish it - getting it done is more important that the time it takes.

Also remember with photos as badly damaged as these you will never end up with a sharp clear new picture look, it will always be a compromise between what you can do and what you wish you could do.

I sometimes get to the stage where whatever else I do seem to make it worse, that is the time to declare it finished and send it home - remember whatever you can achieve is a great improvement to what exists now.


Max

[GP]

Very true, Max 

Gerlinde