First restoration help

[VisualClarity]

Hello everyone. This is my first restoration with OPR and boy did I have a doozy! I used to restore photos for people a couple of years back (fixing cracks, tears, removing people, placing people, etc.) but nothing like this. It has taken me a couple of weeks to get to this point and I am hoping that I am almost finished. I have sure learned a lot about channels and layers and know that I'll never learn all that there is to know.

I have attached the original and my "fixed" version of the photo that I chose and was hoping for any suggestions concerning the man's face in particular and all else in general.

I think this is a great project and hope that I may be of further service with my limited abilities.

Any comments or suggestions are most welcome.

[Candice]

Hey they have my afghan!  lol

[Hannie]

Hi Visualclarity,

Welcome to the forum and thanks for sharing your work with us!
You have done an incredible cleanup job on the doozy you picked, you must have felt a bit of a shock when your downloaded the full res version...  great repair job, the afghan looks like new!
One thing jumps out at me and that is the faces of the people in your restore.  They seemed to have lost some expression and when I had a real close look I could tell it was the lack of highlights after you painted over their skin.  If at all possible I try not to paint over the good part of skin but rather use the clone/heal tools for damage control.

Great job on your first OPR restore!

Hannie

[glennab]

Hi VC

Nice first restoration!

I only have a couple of comments.  I concur with Hannie that you could probably get better and more realistic skin if you used the healing or patch tools.  I have really good luck with the patch tool if there's enough good skin with which to work.  It's easier to keep your contours with patching and/or healing than with cloning.  It'll also give you smoother skin tones.

The only other thing that struck me is that I think the photo needs some warmth.

I played around a bit, and here's what I got (this is from the original, and I'd recommend always color correcting before doing anything else):



It looks more natural to me.

One last thought (heaven help us, the Kraken is getting chatty again): I'm not sure how to accomplish this, but I think the dad needs some shaping of his jacket.  Because it's a solid color it looks very flat.  We need someone to come up with a tutorial on giving the really dark clothing shading/shape.  I hate to share observations without having a solution, but this is one of those.  I've yet to work on one with dark clothing, so I have no clue.

Again, great work!  I'm looking forward to seeing more from you.

Cheers,

GK

Just a note: what I've posted doesn't look as warm as my working file.  Probably should have changed the color profile.  Anyway, this is close enough to show the warmer tones.

[VisualClarity]

Thanks for the comments and recommendations.

To glennab and Hannie, I literally smacked myself upside the head when I read your posts! I have always done color, contrast, and levels corrections first on any photo I have worked with, but failed to do so with this photo. My only excuse is that I was so obsessed with doing a good job for people that have suffered so, that I abandoned my usual routine and began cramming on channels, masks and layers of which I had little experience. I have always used stamping and cloning tools for most of my work and thought I had better start using more "technical" tools to get a better outcome, veering from my motto of KISS (Keep It Simple, Stupid). Probably some OCD on my part, LOL!

Thank you all for taking the time to help. What a warm community this OPR is  :-*

P.S. And lagirl, I had to laugh....we also have an afgan like the one in the picture!

[glennab]

Hi again VC

I hate to keep making up rules, but there will be NO HEAD SMACKING!  (I say this, even though my current restoration has nearly had me banging my head against the wall! But I didn't do it, so there'll be NO HEAD BANGING either!)

Nothing prepares us for these stinkers.  They're beyond any of the myriad books I've read and tutorials I've watched.  We can get ideas from which to extrapolate our own out-of-the-box means by which to grapple with them, and get feedback from OPR oldsters or eagle-eyed newbies, but the only way to feel comfortable (if that's possible) getting through one of the difficults is pwactice, pwactice, pwactice.

Once you've done a few restorations, you'll probably fall into a routine, i.e. color correct first, use non-destructive editing, lots of layers and masks, save often!, and let the rest of the OPR gang help you whenever you run into an issue.  I don't know if anyone else does this, but every time I start working on my restoration I make a copy of the file, name it with the date and carry on from that point.  I also save each iteration onto a memory stick.  It's saved my tush a couple of times.

I also find that a great learning tool is to grab a file with which one of the other volunteers is struggling, pull it onto my desktop and play with it.  I may or may not come up with a solution, but I certainly learn a heck of a lot in the process.

I'm glad you're with us, and I'd recommend that you be gentle with yourself.  The restorations are a terrific learning tool, but they're hellacious challenges as well.  It makes us tough; it makes us conquer a very steep learning curve; it makes us crazy! (who said that???)

'Nuff pep talk.

Cheers

GK