Let's chew the blue

[Atlantis]

Now that my semi-autumnbreak is over I started working on a typical slow cooker. Lots and lots of spots to be dabbed so progress will be pixel by pixel with regular time-outs to avoid RSI  :D

And there is the dilemma of colouring and how to tackle it.

First the original, I immediatly fell for this gorgeous photo :


After colourcorrecting according the superbe tutorial I got this :


Lots of yellows and blues appeared and I battled the yellows first by using select - color range - yellows and applied one adjustment layer Hue/Sat - saturation -100 (trick learned from Katrin Eisman's book) which gave me :


While thinking of the next step I started to do some of the "boring" work ... a few hundred dots a day ...

The next step would be the blues and that's where I tried several techniques without finding the perfect solution.

• first I tried the same approach as I did to tackle the yellows but it did not work, not even after several duplications of the Hue/Satlayer (as suggested in the book)
  my next try was to select the blues and use the adj.layer selective colours, alas not the desired results
  and I tried to find the opposite colour of the blues but there are many shades of blue in this photo so none of it worked

My last try was to add a channels adjustment layer, set red & green to 0 and blue to 100 (also from my KE restauration bible) and I thought it looked best when set to Hue


But this would take out all the colours and also left the damage underneathe the blues on the white shirt visible and I thought the brown colouring needed to be brought back in at the end so for some testing I added a brown color fill picked from the colourcorrected browns and set it to color


When looking more closely at the skincolours and the shirtcolour in the colourcorrected layer I saw more flesh and white colours than the brown coloured testlayer which makes me think I need to handcolour it in the end when I choose the channelsmethod to knock out all the shades of blue.

And this is where you guys come in. What road would you recommend and what alternative did I miss in my survey?
Am I right in assuming this would be a studioshot in which lots of browns in the costume, props and the background were used to create a pseudo antique style because the skincolours look more pinkish than one would expect on a real sepia? Or did staring at it to long make me see things that are not actually there?

[Mhayes]

Atlantis, isn't it fun when you start down one path and suddenly discover that isn't the one you want?  ;D I agree with you on this being a studio shot and lots of browns were used to give it a pseudo antique look. On your 2nd photo, I like the richness of the brown overalls and also will like more of the skintones than a straight sepia. You are going to have fun with the colors, plus having so much damage to repair.  Since you have Katrin's book on restoration, take a look at Chapter 7 Rebuilding and Re-creating Images on page 271 for Repairing Light Leaks. I know this isn't the same thing, but I'm wondering if some of the coloring could be helped by using Color Fill layers.

Margie

[glennab]

Atlantis, here's another method worth checking out.  While in RGB mode, do your color correcting, then change mode to greyscale.  That will allow you to designate your color mode as a duotone or tritone.  Play with the different color mixtures until you get one you like, then change back to RGB and refine the colors with selective color, or whatever works for you.  I'd never tried that before, but there are great possibilities for an aged-looking photo like this one (and I'm with you, I think it's absolutely wonderful).  All the color casts disappear when you go to greyscale, then you have more control of the color mixture.  I found some VERY interesting combinations with this technique.


Good luck!

GK

[Atlantis]

And this is what I got after weeks of dotting mold :



On to the next challenge!

[Hannie]

OMG Atlantis, that looks absolutely beautiful!
What a lovely sepia color, nice crisp whites and do I detect some pink in the color of the skin?

:wnw:

Hannie

[Atlantis]

I prefer to call it skincolour   ;) , the different shades of skincolour were picked from the colourcorrected base (second photo on this page).

[Mhayes]

Atlantis, I 2nd Hannie in that this is absolutely beautiful! I know this was a lot of work and sometimes you would start over again, but what a great ending!  :up:

Margie

[glennab]

Atlantis, this is awesome, especially the color!

The only thing that strikes me is the texture of the jeans.  It appears to me that there's enough undamaged denim to use as a source to improve the look of the center area that had so much to repair.

A great job on a precious photo!

Happy New Year!

GK

[lurch]

Beautifully done, Atlantis!

[Tess (Tassie D)]

That is such an adorable photo, brings back memories of simpler times. Beautifully done Atlantis. :up: