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Copy Stand-Emily

santa and the boys

[G3User]

Rather than struggle with clone stamp tool when a significant area need the color repaired, I have tried using the paint tool on multiple color layers. I haven't found the approach particularly easy, if you need to adjust hue or saturation of one or more layers it gets confusing.

Found a reference to a method by Ed Fisher on the RetouchPRO site which so far seems to be an improvement. He describes it as the "EdColor" method and the site has links to a pdf file and a saturation mask curve which needs to be applied.

He works in lab mode, applying single colors or gradient masks on separate layers. The trick is that the saturation mask he provides reduces the saturation from maximum at mid grey to zero at almost 100% black or white

The following is an example on a grayscale, R G and B applied as single colors and the bottom stripe a gradient mask running Y R and B.



Anyone else tried it?

Athol

[glennab]

Hi Athol

I'm not sure what type of background you're replacing, but I've had luck on a large area without it's looking flat by using filter, render, clouds and sampling very similar colors from the actual colors in the background.  I may do that several times on different layers, sampling even more colors from the background.  Then I use whatever blending mode works best, flatten the layers and then blur them.  Not always the answer, but it's worked a number of times for me.

Another thing that works if you have too many parts of the image to go around is to use the patch tool, starting with small areas and increasing the size of the patches as you progress.  When you're done, you might have to blur or clone some of the area to make it uniform, but it gets the job done much more quickly than cloning small areas within the whole image.

Hope that helps.  I'll have to check out the technique in RetouchPRO, as that's a new one to me.  Always looking for new ways to attack these monsters!

Cheers

GK

[Mhayes]

Hi Athol,

Thanks for tip! I came back today from a garden tour and while at a arboretum everything was beautiful, but the water--a muddy color from recent rains. I have been playing around with different means of changing that and now I will see how your method works. Everything I have done so far is not working.

Margie

[G3User]

Hi Glenna,

Thanks for the suggestions.

My last repair triggered the search, it included a gown of solid color with folds so the brightness varied significantly. There were only scattered pixels of what appeared to be the original color

First try was to sample one of those and paint a color layer with a hue/saturation layer attached. When the saturation of the mid brightness of the gown looked OK, the highlights and shadows seemed to be over saturated. Painting with the sponge tool to de-saturate helped but was fiddly and I wasn't able to do any better with a gradient mask.

This approach appears to avoid that problem by using the brightness to control saturation which was what the grey scale I attached attempted to show. If you save it, duplicate it, make the top layer color and insert a solid color (50% gray) below you can see how the saturation has been controlled by the brightness.

Be interested to hear how your water image goes Margie, if there are lots of ripples then a gradient mask might be interesting 

My current image includes the same gown so will press on and post the result when I get that far

Athol

[Mhayes]

Athol, I didn't have a chance to try it out as today was hectic trying to get some loose ends tied up. One of which was paying a traffic ticket for going 10 mph over the speed limit. In order to keep my insurance from going up; I had to pay another $25 for diversion--way for them to getmore money, but keep it off my record. The only funny thing is that I think they changed the ticket to a non-moving violation. It sort of crossed my mind to decline paying for speeding if I wasn't moving, but decided this was not the time to be cute.

Back to the pictures of the muddy water. There are no ripples, but there are plenty of reflections. If I have problems pulling it off; I may post a sample to the forum. I did while playing around do a B&W with the red channel and it looked liked an infrared photo--a lot better than the color.

Towards the end of the week, I should be getting a new computer. When that happens I will probably be down for a day or two, or with my luck a long time. Nothing like ordering PhotoShop CS5 and finding out it won't operate on my computer. Could this be planned obsolesce?

Margie

[G3User]

Of the computer or THE PRESIDENT?

 

Athol

[Hannie]

 

Very cheeky Athol!

When I started reading this topic I didn't have a clue what you guys were talking about.  It is worth for everyone to read on though and to look at the RetouchPro topic that you mentioned:
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/photo-retouching/20727-colorization.html

I thought it was very interesting and helpful.  It was easy to understand as well.
I downloaded the black and white image and tried out the "Edcolor" method.  The results are very natural.  I did have to use the sponge (desaturate) tool a little on the highlights and around the hairline.

Hannie

[Mhayes]

Both! 

Hannie, that looks great!

Margie

[G3User]

Very nice Hannie. It is possible to see how the saturation varies over her face. Did you try the same approach elsewhere? The variation in saturation in her hair looks very natural.

Been fiddling with gradient maps as well, they allow the hue in the shadows and highlights to be modified from the main hue. So far I have learned how well I can muck things up.  

To be continued

Athol

[G3User]

A slightly different version with some not very exact masking.

I used a 3 colour gradient map for the face, a blue at low luminosity to pick up the shirt color under her chin, skin color in the middle and yellow for the highlights.

It is different, not sure that using the extra colors is any better.

Athol

[Hannie]

Athol, that looks great!
I don't know much about using gradient maps in colorizing, still have to read up on that one.

I got a great color repair tip from OPR volunteer Drphotohap that I would like to share with everyone.
He said that shadows in a color image should contain some slight purple color.
I tried it and although subtle, the result made a difference.

Hannie

[G3User]

Thanks for the hint Hannie. I had suspected that something like that helped and it was partly the reason for using blue for the low brightness in the gradient map I used.

They, like many things in Photoshop are fiddly to use initially and are probably only required infrequently. Ed's pdf file is now part of my OPR documentation, now all I have to do is to remember that it is there

Athol