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An American Gothic II

Young Man

Feel the Love!

Galveston-74.jpg

[Alan_P]

Hi Everyone,

Here is my latest up for comments.





Alan

[Mhayes]

Hi Alan,

Some photos do not respond to normal color correction and this is one of them. From your WIP it looks as though you have used the black and white eye dropper? Whatever you have done has caused some weird color shifts. I like the color on your baby's face and his cap, but not the rest. There appears to be a baby blanket on top of the bed and it might have had some yellow in it, but the trouble with this yellow is that it looks like flood damage and is not pleasing to the eye. What I would do is use the gray dropper in Curves (good place under the cap) and forget the other two. The photo will still be off and the baby will be faded, but you can take care of that later. Duplicate layers after the slight color correction and then I would make the baby's blanket more the color of the pillow and the bed sheet underneath. First take care of the streaks that looks like from a plastic holder. You also do not want hard edges outlining the baby as that makes him look like he is floating. This is where layer masks come in handy. Once you have everything done, but the baby, you can go back and work on him. You will have to do some tweaking for color discolouration, but do it for the areas it needed, not a global one. For the baby's suit, you do have some good texture to work between the hands and also some good places on the pants.

Good Luck!

Margie

[Charlene5]

I used my favorite Kodak plugin on this one and here is the result:



The skin tone looks too yellow - probably from the blanket running - but that's an easy fix with a mixer layer and a mask.  I agree with Margie - the streaks in the background are from the plastic and need to go away.  This is a horrible restore but you did get one good break - the baby's suit has an undamaged portion to work from!  Don't I sound like Pollyanna the Glad Girl?  No you may not smack me upside the head for being perky   

MJ

[Alan_P]

Hi Everyone,

Here is my WIP. Am I going in the right direction with the color or am I trying to get too much contrast where it doesn't exist?





Thanks,

Alan

[Mhayes]

Alan,

I think you need to start over. The baby's jumper and the blanket underneath are not the right color. Your first WIP had the right color for the jumper. As I said before, I would go with the same color as the sheet underneath. I don't think the original baby blanket is going to be a pea green. The blanket is also going to need to have the splotches smoothed out. I think your first WIP had the baby's skin a better and MJ's looks good too for skin color. Also, the baby's socks are white with colored stripes. This is not an easy one and if you are not comfortable doing layer masks; I wouldn't do it.

Margie

[Hannie]

Hi  Alan,

You have picked an amazingly difficult restore!
It would be great if you could keep the image soft like the original and steer away from the heavy solid colors.
I also love the skin color in your first version.

Hannie

[Alan_P]

Hi Everyone,

Here is another try at it.



Alan

[Mhayes]

Hi Alan,

I think you're are getting there, but I still think the baby looks better in your 2nd attempt. I took your latest restore and then put your 2nd restore on the next layer and then did a a layer mask and conceal all. I then brushed back in your baby and tweaked from there. Your 2nd restore also had the baby's cap intact. I did a quick and dirty and the blanket has lost the texture you have with the folds which I should have kept. Also, on your last restore the baby's arm should not bulge like that, but rather have a sleeve cuff showing. The socks and booties should be white, but even mine are still discolored.



Margie

[Alan_P]

Hi Everyone,

I used "match color" to get the blanket color from #3 on #2. That keeps the folds in the blanket. U desaturated the baby's shoes to make them whiter. What do you think?



Alan

[Hannie]

Hi Alan,

Baby is morst important in this image, I like Margie's version where she used the baby's skin tone from your first try.  The blanket needs some texture and shading, it can be taken from the original.

Are you comfortable with the use of layer masks?  That is really what you need to use when you attack the blanket and baby socks.   There is no other way to get the blanket and socks right without ruining the baby's good color.

You picked a very difficult restore!

Hannie

[JTJB]

Alan,

I have been following your progress with this and finally had some time to have a look at the image, and thought I might be able to provide some assistance.  Hopefully this might help.

There is a fair bit of information on the Blue Channel, which you can use to add back to the main image .

opr3 by JTJB Enterprises, on Flickr

Once you have a good idea of what is where, remove the colour cast to give yourself a good foundation to work from.  In this particular example I used the area Margie referred to in her earlier post.

opr4 by JTJB Enterprises, on Flickr

As per Hannie's post, here is where layer masks are most important.  Unfortunately global changes will not work in this image.  To keep the texture in the blanket try using a Selective Colour layer and work on the colours you need to to get the areas with good detail exactly how you want it, then you can work from here.

opr2 by JTJB Enterprises, on Flickr

From here, mask out the areas not applicable to the Selective Colour layer.  Here is a shot of the mask.

opr1 by JTJB Enterprises, on Flickr

Once you have the good areas of the image set, you can work from these to repair the poor areas.

Use this technique throughout the image with applicable layers to target the specific areas to work on.

If you work on small parts of the image, you will eventually build up to the finished product you desire.

Hopefully this helps.

JB
 

[Alan_P]

Hi Everyone,

I have the Baby's skin, outfit and blanket masked so I can tweek it if necessary.




Alan

[Hannie]

Hi Alan,

I almost think that some of the yellow in the blanket is discoloration, don't you think?
What if you desaturate the yellow some?

Hannie

[Alan_P]

Hi Everyone,

I can't tell the color of the blanket from the original. Here is the desaturated version.



Alan

[Mhayes]

Alan,

This is a big improvement over your previous one, but Hannie's looks better and doesn't have the yellow staining that yours still has.

Margie