Update on the littlest angel

[Pelican]

Taking any and all suggestions on the lower part of the picture.

Lol, As you can see, there were a b-zillion little dark spots that needed to come out before I could even start on the major repairs. I was so happy!  :)

I'm pretty sure I can recreate the architectural parts cuz I know what the bottom of the column would typically look like as well as the missing bits on the baluster.  I can finish fixing the dress and the gold piping around the bottom of it but her legs are just gone. One thing thats fortunate is the size is 8x10-1/2. But its such a nicely framed shot, I hate to crop it.

[Ratz]

What a beautiful photo Curtis! As you say, it would be a real shame to crop. I think the only thing for it is your artistic skill...make her some legs >:D Sorry I can't be more helpful :)

[Pelican]

Thanks!! I'm looking sooooo forward to it.  ;D

The problem solved itself a little bit though. I was trying to draw in some perspective and noticed the picture was crooked. Well, duh! I notice that it wasn't in the easel straight when the photo was taken first thing. Turns out it around 2 deg off and when I straightened it I had a big problem with the crop that was now going to have to be done.

I go to Image, duplicate. Flatten and fill with white.
Go back to original and bump the dpi up to 350 and drag all layers over.
Size down till the white bg was just out of the work area.

I lost a lot of the picture in some places, especially the bottom. It looks nice though with everything straight and it still seems to be a nicely framed shot. I could shift it up a bit and loose some of the ivy.....but thats not going to make things easier. Whatta ya think?

C

[Mhayes]

Curtis, at the risk of providing the laugh for the day; I thought maybe I would make her look like she really was an angel! I tried the cropping but if you leave the beautiful job that you did with the background and then crop her at the kneecaps, it doesn't look balanced. If you did a closer crop it might work. All I did was add a layer and pick a nice cloud color and then do a cloud filter. I know that we are not to add what is not there, this was more of an attempt to block out the damage. Around the edges of her dress could be extended and a slight blur.



Beautiful job on what you have restored!!

Margie

[Pelican]

Actually, that looks kinda cool!!  ^-^

[schen]

Margie, I was going to suggest putting the angel on the cloud as a joke until I saw your work.  It really really works well!  :wnw:

Curtis, I think you may bring the cloud a bit lower since you already had great plan to extend the baluster and the column down.

Shujen

[mschonher]

Hey C, could that little angel be kneeling as if she were praying?  Also, did you see the teddy bear in the clouds? It's  right next to the 2 doves flying by.  :P

Your work is beautiful as usual, I do like the clouds Margie made it's very etherial looking but I like Schujen's idea of making them a bit lower.............M

[Mhayes]

I agree with Shujen,  the more of the original brought back, the better. The clouds would be an option for trying to replace what can't be recovered.

Margie

[Pelican]

I've been experimenting and the cloud filter doesn't work the same on the the big one. The fluffs are too little and it just doesn't have the look. I have a couple of other cloud tricks though. I'll look at it again tomorrow. I'm gonna work on a different one for a while...

Margie, what color did you use on the clouds? Mine keep coming out bluish.

Ohh and Mary? Don't tempt me with the teddy bear........>:D

[Mhayes]

Curtis, looks like we are at opposite ends on the color for the clouds. What I did was take the color picker and click in and around the area behind the pedestal. The colors are around: Red=215, G=209, and B=208. When you look at this color it will look a little muddy, but it is leaning towards the gray on the red side. I added a layer above the original and after I had used the color picker to pick a nice color around the stone part, I used the paint bucket and covered that layer with that color. I went to the filters and used "clouds." I'm not sure if on that version whether I went in and applied a slight Gaussian Blur or not. From there I did a layer mask (on the clouds) with it inverted to hide the clouds. I then took a very soft brush and painted back with the white where I wanted the clouds to show. On places where I could get away with it, I used a larger brush diameter, which would give it an airbrush feel. Hope this helps.

Margie

[Pelican]

Margie, I was just trying different grays and well, they didn't work at all. Funny though, I was thinking of trying some of the bg browns next. Trouble is I need to try it with one of my other tricks cuz the cloud filter works entirely different on a 300dpi 2400 wide than it does on a 72dpi 800 wide save for web. I'll probably be making s.t.(something  :funny:) in a different doc and bringing it in. If it works I'll explain...lol.

The rest of your procedure sounds very similar to what I was doing anyway and will probably stick to as it develops....only I don't invert. I just use a black brush on the mask.

Thanks!!!!
Curtis

[weewood]

Margie, I'm impressed. I think the little girl looks great in the clouds.  :)

[Pelican]

This is looking pretty close. See any details I missed? Hope the clouds look okay, they're really hard to do at this size.

[Tess (Tassie D)]

That looks stunning Curtis. :up: The only thing I noticed is on the column, opposite side to the angel, there are some white clone spots down the side edge?

[Pelican]

Thanks Tassie. I saw those when I was working and completely forgot about them.