• Welcome to Operation Photo Rescue's Online Community.
 

This is tough

Started by philbach, July 29, 2009, 11:04:15 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

philbach

Before I get going on this I was wondering if there is a quick way to remove the cottony artifacts.

phil

Hannie

Good grief Phil, who gave you that one!  Certainly not anything one would find in my gallery!   :halo:
The good news is, it can be restored.  The bad news, it'll take you 3 years.

Just kidding!  This photo is one of the worst cases of white fuzz I've ever seen. 
There really are no shortcuts I can think of that would make this clean up any easier. 
Well that wasn't much help, all I can tell you is what I would do:

first a levels correction
then I bring back the yellow and red saturation a notch for better skin tone. (use layer mask)
I would really zoom into the face and work on pixel level, cloning/patching/healing (takes a while)
the rest of the skin and hair I would do a similar thing as the for the face but not zoom in quite that close
dress and background patching/cloning in a similar way. 

Background replacement always looks ugly but if you cannot do it another way here is a tip:  before background is replaced look very closely (zoom in very close) at the area where the subject meets the background and try to mimic the way that looks in your restore.

Good luck,

Hannie
Hannie Scheltema
Distribution Coordinator
[email protected]

lurch

I'd swear I replied to this post in RTP, but it didn't show up. Oh, well. What I said was I've had some limited success with replace color applied in stages, in areas that don't have any other detail (this photo has so much moldy spider-webbing there are a lot of areas where any detail that might have been there is now gone). Other than that, you're in for a LOT of cloning.

PS: I've downloaded the pic you posted on RTP and have been playing with calculations-generated masks - got one result that was enough better so that you could cut down the cloning needed by a fair amount. Gonna keep playing, but I'll post that result and the mask used if it won't get any better.
<C>

philbach

Thanks Lurch and Hanna.  I was unsuccessful in generating a decent mask with apply image or calculations but that is one thing I plan to do.  And lurch let me know how your mask turns out. I tried some other strategies too which don't work well either such as blurring using darken blending mode.  Or copying the layer and using darken blending mode and move the copied layer a few pixels. 

I'll wait for a day or two for a magic bullet of some kind but I don't think one will come.  Its a small photo as far as pixels go so I have upscaled it using bicubic sharper algorithm and I'll take it from there. 
phil

TerryB

Phil, tough may be the understatement of the year...so far.

Here's how I would approach it, but remember your mileage may vary.

Initial color correction:


Then use the ever-popular and extremely effective technique of adding a Dodge-Burn layer,
{Ctl-Shift-N}, Soft Light mode and check the <Fill with 50% gray> box:


And paint on this layer with black & white, soft brushes at fairly low opacity to tweak the too-dark & too-light skin areas and anything else that you think needs it.

I think Hannie offered the only solution to the skin, hat, dress and hair; clone, heal, patch.

If I were doing this one, I wouldn't even attempt a repair on the background, I'd make a new one and drop the repaired young lady into it.  Here's my suggestion for a background replacement, it's yours to download and use if you wish.  You can tweak the background as you see fit with Brightness/Contrast, Levels and Hue-Saturation adjustments...I hope this helps.


Lurch: what does RTP stand for?
Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the situation.

lurch

#5
Terry, RTP is RetouchPro, a forum for retouchers, restorers, photographers, and photo manipulators. It's a good place full of helpful people; I've learned a lot there.

BTW, I'm with you on replacing the backdrop. There's enough to do on this monster.
<C>

TerryB

Quote from: lurch on July 31, 2009, 03:28:42 PM
Terry, RTP is RetouchPro, a forum for retouchers, restorers, photographers, and photo manipulators. It's a good place full of helpful people; I've learned a lot there.

BTW, I'm with you on replacing the backdrop. There's enough to do on this monster.

Ahh, yes RetouchPro. I'm signed up there and participate occasionally but never saw it referred to as RTP.  Thanks.
Confidence is the feeling you have before you understand the situation.

philbach

Well thanks.  I agree on replacing the backdrop Terry, and Lurch.  Right now I am just working on the lady part and later I'll move her up to a separate layer.  Also the text is on a separate layer.  The only thing I found to restore the lady is to paint her.  Its a slow process and I am about half way through with her restoration.  A real challenge and perhaps more than I can handle.  But progress is being made.  Here is where I am right now.  I hope to finish by thanksgiving LOL.
phil

Mhayes

#8
Hi Phil,

I agree with you on working on separate layers, and the advice on the background. However, you might want to do something different when restoring the lady rather than painting. I don't know if you saw Athol's post, but it will give you a great way to colorize without painting and loosing the texture and shading below. First clean up the photo in B/W, change mode to CMYK and colorize. Here is the link: http://www.operationphotorescue.org/forum/index.php/topic,2431.0.html  Also on our site under Home Page>Portfolio>Tutorials http://www.operationphotorescue.org/portfolio/tutorials/ are some great tutorials on doing hair.

I would do the woman separately and when she is restored, bring her over (change from CMYK to RGB) as a layer and mask her into the background. You will have different layers which will allow you to tweak as needed.

Margie
"carpe diem"

Margie Hayes
OPR President
[email protected]

philbach

Thanks Margie, I took a look at the tutorials and will definitely study the hair tutorials stat.  I have sort of crossed the rubicon on the retouch of the lady and I am doing here on a separate layer.  

In this case it seems to me that the color isn't so bad but the luminosity is a mess. Ha. So when painting I can just select color from an adjacent area.  So far as one would suspect, the eyes, lips, and hair seem be the most difficult since in many cases the edges of these structures are gone so one has to sort of guess.  So for now I will stop and study the fine hair tutorial on your site.
phil

Mhayes

Phil, I'm not sure when you say "painting" you mean painting or painting by having a layer set to colorize and painting? The one thing to watch for if you are painting by the former is that the face will start to look more like a mask, and subtle shading in the face will no longer be subtle.

Margie
"carpe diem"

Margie Hayes
OPR President
[email protected]

philbach

Well on a separate layer I am using a soft 30% opaque brush and sample from areas adjacent to the cotton artifacts.  I am using a normal blending mode with low opacity to gradually build up the color.  I am just about done and I will probably post something tomorrow.
phil

G3User

Phil,

I am still experimenting with the coloring of a CMYK image using curves. However I find it difficult to repair a B/W image successfully if I am working in monochrome, it is very easy to miss very small variations in brightness which, when color is added really show up.
I have found adding a colour layer with approximately the required colour makes it much easier to create smooth repairs to the B/W layer under it.
When the B/W repair is completed the color layer can be disgarded and the image colored using either CMYK/curves, gradient masks etc

In this case you have undamaged highlight, low light and mid light skin tones available so gradient masks on the B/W might be worth a try.

I looked at this one and chickened out, you are a hero

Athol

philbach

Athol, I did not colorize this photo since I was able to use adjacent areas of color on a separate layer.  I tried the CYMK tutorial on using curves to colorize on some movie star and could not get it to work right.  To colorize, what I do is make some gradients using colors and luminosity of other folks and than use a gradient mask on the area.  Oh well.

Here is my submission.  Its more of a work of art than a restoration.  And the bad news is that I am not an artist.  I downloaded this as sort of an experiment on trying to fix something that was beyond my ability.  Of course it may not be over either since the reviewers  have not rendered an opinion.

The photo was only 900 pixels wide and to work with it I upscaled it to 3600 pixels and when I finished I returned it back to 900 pixels again.   
phil

lurch

Phil, you've done wonders on this one! You'll never convince me you're not an artist.
<C>