HI,
This is my latest effort, still a work in progress but I would like your comments.
(http://usera.imagecave.com/Ausimax/FORUM_PHOTOS/bourleta15_36.jpg)
(http://usera.imagecave.com/Ausimax/FORUM_PHOTOS/bourleta15_36_006-.jpg)
Max
It's looking really good, Max! :up:
The skin tones look a little yellow to me. I did a companion to this pic. At least now I know what that thing is beside Santa's head :funny:
Hi Max
I only see a couple of things I'd tweak. I agree with Kenny that the skin tones need to be warmed up a bit. I'd also match the color of Santa's hat to his suit and get a little grain into the suit, since it looks rather flat. Otherwise, looks good!
GG
You know, it's funny. After spending numerous hours working on a photo you feel like you get to know the people in it. I saw this photo and I immediately thought "I know that girl!".
I love doing this :)
Kenny
Hi, Slasher, glennab, thanks for your comments, I agree on all counts, the skin colour is a problem, I haven't actually started on this image yet, I knew the yellow cast was going to be a problem, so I just started playing around to see what I could do about it.
I opened an adjustment layer of every colour control tool in the menu, and could find nothing that would correct the colour,
Curves was the only thing that would take it to white, and that was flat white no hint of detail and it destroyed every other colour in the image.
So then I went to channels, the red channel brought out the white nicely as a monotone, so I converted the red channel to an image file, then selected and copied all the white bits into the working image.
The other colours in the image were not too bad, so I could work with them, that only left the hands and faces with the yellow cast, what I have done so far is to select those bits and use a Hue & Saturation adjustment layer to try and achieve a more natural skin tone, worked reasonably well on Santa, but not on the little girls face.
I tried to find a colour to match skin tone to apply to a overlay layer to try and improve the colour, without any success, I'll have another go today, however if anybody has any hints on how to get this right I would be very grateful, I find colour problems a real pain.
Thanks again for taking the time to help with this, I find it invaluable to get the advantage of other sets of eyes, you spend so long looking at the image you start to loose you objectivity.
I agree with you Kenny, you spend so much time with these people they almost become like family members, you feel you know them so well.
Max
PS. Just fitted another 512 Mb ram to my computer so that should help a bit, now if I can just find a program that knows how to restore photos I'll be laughing! :funny:
Max, I had the same problem with the restoration I did for the same family. The color is so destroyed I couldn't restore it by any adjustments I tried. Yours looks good except for the skin tone. I finally had to colorize my entire image. I believe all yours would need is to colorize the skin.
It would be nice if Photoshop had a desaturate tool. (It might and I just don't know about it). What I did was use two images. One totally desaturated and one in full color on another layer above the desaturated one. I used my erase tool with a soft brush to remove the parts I wanted desaturated, then merged the layers.
Anyway, just a suggestion.
Kenny :)
Hi Max,
I played around with your image for a few minutes, trying to come up with some solutions. Do you have CS2? If so, perhaps try the Photo Filter in the layer adjustments under the layers pallete. I went to a blue filter, which cooled the colors a little bit. Because it creates a layer mask, you can "erase" areas that you didn't want affected. Then, if you feel you still need a bit of color, or rosiness for Santa's nose, make a new layer, choosing a soft paintbrush, reduce the paintbrush opacity and flow to something very low, and pick a nice pinkish skin toned color. In my quick playing, I chose a pink, reduce the opacity and flow to around 15% each and gave Santa and the little girl subtle rosy cheeks. It's not perfect, but I didn't want to spend too much time on a picture that eventually is yours to conquer. No guarantee that this will provide you with the results you are looking for, but it's something I used on another picture that seemed to work nicely. Good luck, and I'll be anxious to see the final results!
Christine
Thanks Kenny, I watched as you did yours, nice job, colour damage is a real pain, I'll have a look and see if I can use your method, or find a tool that will do it, haven't found out what half of PS's tools do yet.
Christine, your post just came in. Thanks for your ideas, they could be a real help, it is the things you don't think of until somebody points you in the right direction that make these forums so valuable.
Will have to get my head down and apply all my new found knowledge, thanks again.
Max
Hi Max
Try this. Open a new layer, set it in overlay mode and make its opacity about 60%. Get a pink colour as your foreground colour and with the brush paint over the skin areas. If the result isn't exactly correct, delete and play around with the colours until you are happy.
Harvey
Kenny I think the desaturation tool your are looking for is the sponge tool set to desaturation. It is hidden under the dodge or burn tools.
Harvey
Thanks Harvey! That's Soooooo much easier than the way I've been doing it! :D
Hi Max
Another possibility is to select the areas you want to warm up, give them a slight feather, go to adjustments, selective color, and choose neutrals. Drag the yellow slider to the negative and see if that helps, or select yellow and decrease yellow and add magenta.
GG
Hey Folk,
Thank you all for your great advice, this is the next generation, using Christine's method, I think it looks more natural - but I have tried so many alternatives I don't even know what it should look like.
Comments welcomed, it may be time I worked on something else for a while and have a look at it with a clear mind later.
(http://usera.imagecave.com/Ausimax/FORUM_PHOTOS/bourleta15_36_007.jpg)
Max
Hey Max
It worked! Their faces look much more natural.
A question - and I'm sorry I didn't catch this last night - it was WAY past my bed time. Is it possible that the little guy (or girl) is wearing blue jeans? This morning I'm noticing the details on the overalls, and they look like jeans. That would lead me to believe that there's too much yellow in the clothing as well. You might be able to test that by going to your original and using the Curves eyedroppers -- the middle one will set the grey tones if you can find something in the image that you know would be in that range (possibly something in Santa's beard or the fur trimmings). It might get rid of the yellow cast and allow you to get a better rendition of the original tones.
Have a wonderful day!
GG
Hi glennab,
I don't think her suit was blue, the mortar in the bricks is green, and I doubt if it would have been blue and any colour change should have effected it also.
I tried the curves eyedroppers on the original image to try and colour correct it, only made it worse, it must be a characteristic of the water damage that the colour casts don't respond as a normal exposure colour cast.
Still have it on the back burner, may have another look at it tomorrow, thanks for your care and suggestions.
Max
Hey Max
Consider this: mortar is usually gray (or at least any that I've seen). That may be a good place to start adjusting your color cast. It might be worth seeing how your colors appear if you click your gray eyedropper on the mortar.
GG
Thanks glennab, I hadn't thought that the mortar may be gray, though the bricks are gray (I think) and coloured mortar would make a contrast.
Will check it out again, a bit confused as to what to use as a neutral gray, I tried the bricks and that did no good - will keep trying other options for a while.
Thanks again for your good advice, you are a champion!
Max
Max, if you're not sure about the color of the mortar, maybe some of the shadow in Santa's beard would be another option for getting the gray. GG
P.S. Thanks for the kind words! I like to get my 2 cents' worth in if I think I can help, and I'm also learning so much from the rest of you. This has been a great experience! I feel as if I have friends all over the world. Works for me!!!
The bricks are, well, brick red ;D
I lucked out and the girl was wearing a big bird shirt in the picture I did. As we all know, big bird is yellow, so that made it easier. I left my mortar kind of a light grey. It's lighter than neutral grey, though.
I know what you're going through on this one, Max. Every correction I tried brought out more unwanted color casts. You'rs looks pretty good as it is. A little touchup on the color and I think it'll be perfect.
I think the girls overalls might be blue, but, green is a christmas color. :D
You might try a new layer set on color and fill the overalls with blue to see how it looks.
Kenny
*Edit
I did a quick and dirty version of what I described and this is how it turned out:
(http://img71.imageshack.us/img71/3699/blueev7.jpg)
I used a new layer set on color, used a soft brush with CMYK Blue (33348E), painted the overalls, then reduced the opacity of the new layer to 50 percent because it looked a little TOO blue to me.
Anyway, my 2 cents on the deal :P
Hi Kenny & Max
I have to say I prefer the skin tones in Max's version. They seem more natural and warm. But I do like the blue jeans in BLUE! Max, I'd say you'd have to make the call. I like Kenny's suggestion for making the jeans blue, if you choose to do that. Even a soft selection around her clothing and whatever adjustments you're comfortable with would give you an idea if that's the ticket.
Sans the color issues, I still think you did a wonderful job!
GG
Hi Kenny, glennab,
Have decided to go with the green version, no amount of colour manipulation I did on the original would make the suit blue, or the bricks red or the mortar gray, and besides my resident fashion expert, DW, said that you would not use those colour patches on blue denim, and that the stitching is wrong for denim, more the style used to decorate flannel type material. And after 45 years I have learnt not to disregard "expert" advice lightly.
Still a little more tweaking to do then I think it can go home, and the powers that be can decide its fate.
Thank you all for you kind advice and encouragement, it is much valued.
Max.
Hi Max
You're a very smart guy to go with your "fashion expert's" advice. And I never thought of flannel being the fabric (I live in the south -- what would I know about flannel?? I don't even own a coat!) -- and NOT being a fashion expert, I'd also defer to your consultant. More than anything, I think you got the color of their faces just right. It's a fine restoration in my book.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Glenna
Sometimes, instead of trying to adjust the color, it's necessary to recolor. I "recolored" this image after desaturating the original to remove all color casts. There are quite a few coloring tutorials out there that illustrate how to do this. And, believe it or not, it doesn't take that much longer than trying to adjust what can't be adjusted. If you like this version, you can resize it, and put it on a layer over your version. Then set the layer mode to color. You can use a layer mask to blend the two together if you like. ( I didn't work on the patches on her overalls)
BTW, you did a fine job on this restoration!
Vikki
(http://www.pbase.com/vhansen/image/67765300/original.jpg)
Vikki, the re-coloration is gorgeous. I'd love to know how you did it! The restoration Max did was wonderful, but other than the faces and Santa's suit, the colors just didn't seem quite right to my eyes. I wouldn't have a clue how to render the colors as naturally as you did. I WANT A TUTORIAL! PLEEZE!
GG
Thanks, GG.
This is the tutorial for the method I use. It can seem a bit difficult at first, but if you practice it gets easier.
http://www.worth1000.com/tutorial.asp?sid=161015 (http://www.worth1000.com/tutorial.asp?sid=161015)
Here is another method of colorizing.
http://www.worth1000.com/tutorial.asp?sid=161018 (http://www.worth1000.com/tutorial.asp?sid=161018)
Here are some examples where I've used the method described in the first link above.
http://www.pbase.com/vhansen/colorings (http://www.pbase.com/vhansen/colorings)
Vikki
Vikki,
Your colourisation is fantastic, as are the examples on your site, at this time the image has been returned, however I will try out your method and if I can get an acceptable result I will submit it as an alternate.
Thank you for the links, the tutorials are great, as you have no doubt worked out, I need all the PS help I can get.
I have posted about this before, but I just wish more information could be included with the image, such as the colour of clothing and features and details, important or not important to the image. I would remove the need for discussions like this about what colour something is and if a certain detail is critical to the memories conveyed by the image.
This would be helpfully, as some of these colour casts will just not respond to normal methods, and recolouring as you did would be much more efficient, especially if you knew the bricks were "red" and the suit was "Blue".
Anyway enough of my gripe, thanks for your valuable advice and info, by the way, do you do this professionally or just as a hobby?
Max
Vikki -- thanks for the links to the tutorials. They've given me food for thought on doing some coloration on some wonderful old family photos I have.
I also checked out your gallery. You have an incredible touch. It's one thing to know the techniques, but you definitely have turned coloration into an art. You have my admiration, for sure. I'm curious, as Max is, whether you do this as a profession or a hobby. Either way, you're a pro!
Best wishes,
GG
Vikki,
I have been trying to use your recolouring system to rework this image, not with a great deal of success, I worked through the first tutorial and ended with something like the tutorial result.
When I applied the technique to this photo I found the going hard, it seems to require a lot of painting out on the masks and that entails a lot edge trimming with a shaky hand and a jumpy mouse, and having to do it over several layers really increases the workload.
I ended up creating a lot of paths to select areas repeatedly, that helped a bit. I think I may be missing something with this method, any suggestions would be welcome.
I haven't used masks all that much, other than for sticking-up convenience stores. :funny:
This is where I have got to at this stage, not really happy with it and I have not yet dealt with the patches, haven't a clue what colour they should be.
(http://usera.imagecave.com/Ausimax/FORUM_PHOTOS/bourleta15_36_010.jpg)
Max
Max,
I think this looks beautiful, and I don't think you need to make any further adjustments. It's easy to start second guessing what you've done after spending a TON of hours on a photo. I'd send this off to OPR. I really think it looks good. I understand the confusion on the color cast, as the little girls pants could easily be green or blue. However, I think what you've done is outstanding, and I think the family will be thrilled to get this back.
Christine
Christine,
Thanks for your comments on the last image, but wait! There's more! The saga has not yet ended, I tried out the second tutorial Vikki had linked, and found it seemed to work better for me, pretty tedious as every element of the image has to be selected separately, at least you can then adjust each independently.
Anyway here is the latest episode, give me your thoughts on it, please.
(http://usera.imagecave.com/Ausimax/FORUM_PHOTOS/bourleta-Recolour.jpg)
Oh boy, this is being a steep learning curve, I'm getting too old for this sort of nonsense.
Max
Max,
The colors look a little too...crisp, for lack of a better word. I would go ahead and send in your other one for now and keep this one to practice the new techniques on.
Is each color is on a separate layer? Try lowering the opacity of each color and see how it looks. You can also try a slight gaussian blur. If you have the layer set to color, you won't need to clean up the edges after using the blur, this should soften the lines up nicely. To my eyes, the best colorized works give a nice suggestion of color without being overwhelming.
Kenny :)
Max this is beyond awesome! Obviously you're not TOO OLD to tackle these. You've stuck with this bear when a lot of youngsters would have walked away from it.
Look at it this way: it keeps the brain cells exercised! You've only got a few years on me, and I can tell you from experience that it's tough to get into so many new techniques and ways of observing things as we're forced to do in working on the restorations. But there's a wonderful sense of accomplishment upon mastering something new -- or even making it work once - and I think we oldsters have the wisdom to especially appreciate that.
I think you're wonderful, and your restorations are a special gift to the people for whom you're doing them. All that caring from the other side of the world -- It doesn't get any better than that.
Have a most wonderful day!
GG
P.S. While I was posting this Kenny also posted. I'm afraid I have to disagree, Slasher! I think the vibrancy of the colors makes this version sparkle. I love it!
There you have it, Max. There is no "right" way to do this, only different ways. That's what makes each of us unique. I love black and white photography and prefer sepia toned pictures to full color ones. Glenna is right, though, your style of restoration is excellent. :up:
Kenny
Max, I forgot to tell you that you sent me to bed last night with quite a chuckle at your crack about using masks!
On that note -- I just bought Katrin Eismann's book called "Compositing and Masks." I'll let you know how much I get out of it ( I expect a bunch --she's a major guru. And I somehow doubt there's a word about convenience stores!!).
GG
I think the coloring is 100% better than the earlier versions.
Although, to be honest, if I were you, I would have tried to submit this as a black & white, after you weren't able to get the results you wanted. Got to give you kudos for sticking with this!
For those that asked, I do this professionally and as a hobby (when there is time.)
Hi Folk,
Thank you for your valuable input, and the encouragement it gives to us less skilled in restoration, I am learning so much from all of you.
I think with a few more tweaks I may send this one home, then the Gurus can decide - Green or Blue!
Glad you got a laugh Glenna, there has to be fun in all this as well, and after a time it seems like the people on the forum are like old friends.
Max
You're right, Max: You've gotta laugh! It's the only way to survive!
And I , too, feel that the volunteers at OPR are friends and family. I've never been on a forum before, and this has been an enlightening and positive experience - thanks to you and the rest of the volunteers who are putting so much heart and soul into the restorations! I have kindred souls all over the world! It warms my heart.
Best to you, as ever,
GG