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I know Tom is coming home

Panoramic-1

6342.jpg

Our river at dusk

[Johnboy]

Thanks Vicki and Glenna. I thought it looked about right but that was my opinion. I started out using only the head of the brother on the right. I eventually did not like the way the head was elongated. In fact you will notice a line going off the crown of the head. That is where I started to fill in with Hair 2 outline. Then Gerlinde's comment from my earlier post about the younger brother's head got me to take another look at it. So plan B developed using two heads. Isn't the saying that two heads are better than one.

Glenna, when I was working on this all I could think about was the hair job you did on the red haired boy a few weeks ago, and how you like to do hair.

Johnboy

[glennab]

Hi JB

You must be thinking of Glenna Schwartz.  I can't even do my OWN hair!   My little red-headed guy was a while back, but I have to admit that I find replicating hair especially intriguing.  Getting the light right and the hair fine enough to look plausable is a huge challenge!  I don't think I've begun to master that fine art!  I find myself a tad envious of those of you who can do it so well!

Cheers!

Glenna

[Johnboy]

I think the hair is done. What do you think?



Johnboy

[Mhayes]

Johnboy,

You did a really nice job! The hairline around the forhead looks perfect.

Margie

[truckersau]

Johnboy, his head/hairline is looking great mate.
It will look 100% better when the background behind him is cleaned up.

[Tess (Tassie D)]

Perfect job Johnboy.

[Hannie]

Hi Johnboy!

What a great job you did on the hairline of this fine looking boy!   
I noticed in the original his hair has a little highlight on both sides, kind of like what Tess did earlier.
I tried to show you what I mean in this pic.

Hannie

[Johnboy]

Thanks for the replies. Now on to the the ear and background. The background gave me fits at times when I was trying to add density to the hair. Had to use quite small areas using the patch tool and match them up to dense areas in the hair. Otherwise it wanted to lighten the density next to the white areas.

Hannie, I see what you are saying but I am not sure that would be correct. By the shadows, the light source appears to be on the camera or just off the camera. He has his head tilted to the right and turned a little in that direction also. Therefore I am thinking that side of his head would be more in shadow or have less light reflecting onto it. The other brothers seem to be looking more directly at the camera and you see the light reflection on the hair. That right side took the most density to fill in as it had a lot of damage. I considered leaving part of that side lighter but after trying to analyze the light angels I decided to darken it more. If you notice the sideburn by the right ear, it looks grey. I was also judging from that as well in making my decision. I'll keep your suggestion in mind as I finish it up.

Johnboy

[glennab]

Hi JB

Great job on the hair!  I think I'd agree with Hannie on the highlight, though.  Even the older brother, who's facing in nearly the same direction, shows some lightness on that side of his head.  I look forward to seeing how the ear and outer hairline work out.  Good luck!

Glenna

[Johnboy]

I never thought an ear could be so tricky and intricate. Now I know why I am not a plastic surgeon other than not liking all the blood and stuff. I am ready for comments on the ear and then on the to background.

I am using one of the earlier hair photos to show the ear damage. Please disregard the hair for this post.


Restored ear


If you do something that improves upon what I have done please share the steps you did to get to the results. I'll probably need a tutorial. I am using Photoshop CS. All the work so far on the ear has been patch tool. Had a hard time finding enough dark density to get it to take against the white areas. I had to reconstruct the ear lobe, but big brother helped with that. Making a copy of his ear, freetransfroming it to fit, and then positioned it over the damage, reduced the opacity, and using it as an outline.

Thanks for your help.

Johnboy

[GP]

Hi Johnboy   

I think you are doing great with the ear. You could use the smudge and blur tool to smooth out the texture a bit. I would have probably chosen the younger brother's ear again ( his right, flipped it over and than free transformed to fit). I think the brother right next to him in the picture shares the most features with him. But either way the ear is getting pretty close.

Gerlinde

[Tess (Tassie D)]

That looks really good Johnboy. I quite often use the smudge tool to reconstruct small pieces, works well.

[glennab]

Hi JB

Lookin' good!  I'd say amen to Gerlinde and Tess's comments.  I'm wondering if you could use one of the other boy's ears as a template.  Most of what you've constructed just needs smoothing and tweaking, but it almost appears as if the ear is just a bit narrow toward the center.  I'm not sure which would be easier: borrowing an ear and making it fit, or just completing what you've done very well and compare his ear to a copy of one of the others to be certain that the proportions are correct.

You've put a lot of fine work into these guys.  I'm looking forward to seeing the finished restoration.  Can't get over what a handsome bunch they are.  I don't think it's possible to not get attached to the subjects of these photos.  Not only do the people in the photos I've worked on feel like family, the ones I see in progress by the rest of the volunteers grab my heart as well.  What a great job we have!

Cheers,

Glenna

[Johnboy]

I tried the right ear from the brother next to him. I flipped it horizontally and freetransformed to fit but it didn't seem to have the same fit that the older brother's left ear had. The older brother's ear seemed to fit at the top better, and seemed to fit into the damaged area better than the younger brother's ear.

Thanks for the smudge tool or blur idea. It just looked rough in some places, and that may be the trick. I may play with some of the densities in places. It has been hard to tell what is ear and shadow and what is damage especially in the dark tones.

Thanks again for the help.

Johnboy

[Johnboy]

This has been a loooong project. Much too long for all concerned, but I think it is ready to go home.

Thanks Schen for the tutorial on using the selection and the healing brush. It turned days of work into hours. (http://www.oprworkshop.org/forum/index.php/topic,1104.0.html check out towards the bottom of page 1). I had tried to create a mask to replace the background but never liked the results I got. I had been working around the head of the older boy who is standing when I read your tutorial. It was a slow go using the Patch tool. Once I read your tip I thought this has promise. So the next time I worked on the image I loaded the selection for the unused mask. I had to inverse it to make it work. Otherwise the mask worked great for the selection. With a little trial and error I was off and running. The only addition I would add to your tutorial is that it may be necessary to use the Fade Healing Brush (found under Edit) to get the healing brush area to match the image. (If you have not used this before you must perform the Fade Healing Brush immediately after the Healing brush step and before proceeding further. Otherwise you loose the chance to match the healing to the image. You could go back in History to try to recover if you goof.) 

Here is the original image:


Ready to go home:


I used the Patch tool to clean up the background. Then added 1 pixel of noise over all, and then added a Gaussian blur to just the background. Also did a .2 % Gaussian blur to the repaired ear.

So let me know if you see anything that need more work. Thanks for the help.

Johnboy