Give me your hand

[Jonas.Wendorf]

Hey there :-),

I just finished my latest restoration and I have to admit, this one was a little more difficult than the previous ones but I'm not known for giving up :-)

Previous:
After:

If you have any more suggestions or eventually tips how to draw hands a little better, I'd appreciate it :-)

[glennab]

Hi Jonas

This is a really lovely job.  I only see a couple of things I'd adjust.  I think her left arm (as we look at her) should taper a bit more at the top.  I think it's too full at the edge. I tried every trick I know and couldn't capture her hand detail.  And hands are a bear. You might check for reference photos of chubby toddler hands to get a little more shaping.  And you definitely need more contrast.  I'm going to post a version that I did levels adjustments on.  The colors are much more vibrant.  I just moved the sliders to the edge of the area of most color.  A little more tweaking might be in order.  That'd be your call.  Here's my color-corrected version.



I'll check and see if I can find a reference hand.  Meanwhile, kudos for the fine cleanup.

Cheers

GK

I found some hands that might be good templates.  If you need them larger, let me know.

[lurch]

Nice job, Jonas! I agree with GK about using levels to brighten the photo. To overcome the magenta cast that Glenna ended up with, I added some yellow by moving just the blue gamma slider. (The tot's skin tones should have roughly the same amount of magenta and yellow.) That correction mucked up the blue backdrop, so I used a selective color adjustment layer to fix it. All this messing around revealed (or created?) some areas of color cast that could, depending on how anal you want to get, be addressed as well. Did you catch the Amy Dresser show on RetouchPro Live? Her technique for color-correcting selected areas might work well here. Oh, what I'd give to have her eye for color!



For more hand examples, you might try Fotosearch.com.

[Mhayes]

Hi Jonas,

I think you have done a great job on this one. I agree that a little more contrast would help, but when I load both GK's and your work; the contrast is a lot more than shows on a web page. In Katrin Eismann's book Photoshop Restoration & Retouching, chapter 4, pg. 124, she has a section on balancing skin tones. As a general rule she has: "In light-skinned babies and young people, yellow and magenta are equal." If you have the Info Palette open in Photoshop and have both the RGB and CYMK showing, you can move your eye dropper around and see what kind of readings you get. This can help you tweak in Cruves. What I found interesting was to compare GK's with yours.


GK Hair: [M:47%/Y:19%]          Jona Hair:  [M:61%/Y:45%]
   Face:  [M:24%/Y:21%]                Face:  [M:34%/Y:44%]
LH Side:  [M:55%/Y:19%]            LH Side:  [M:57%/Y:41%]
RH Arm:  [M:52%/Y29%]            RH Arm:  [M:46%/Y:44%]
LH Arm:  [M:39%/Y:13%]             LH Arm: [M:37%/Y:36%]
                 
Lurch, I see you have posted with some great tips on color correcting.

It is helpful to look at hands to see how to restore what is missing, but do not take a hand from another photo. I personally can live with what you have done on the hands and the arm, because the information there is missing. Plus, your hand doesn't jump out as looking different. I would be tempted to do a Gaussian Blur of 1-2 to fade the fingers and hand a little. Do this with a layer mask so that just the fingers and hand only are worked on.

Margie

[Hannie]

Hi Jonas,  ;-)

Thanks for posting your work and making this a very interesting thread to read! 
I have learned a few more things about color correction today, I love Lurch's tip on using the gamma slider.
I agree with Margie's suggestion to add some Gaussian blur to the hands.  With the help of Glenna's images you may be able to add a little bit of shading before you blur.

Great job,

Hannie

[glennab]

Hi Jonas

I wanted to be sure you knew that I posted the hands just for reference; not to use as her hands.  They just show the pudgy folds and the wrinkles to give you an idea of possible tweaks you could make if you want more detail.  I go to the photo web sites any time I want to see the detail of a body part.  We've joked about looking up people's noses as opposed to finding a reference photo.  (Personally I think it would be more fun to peer into people's ears or whatever, but someone might take offense!)

Margie, your reminder of the incredible succinct information on skin tones in Katrin's book makes me realize I need to have it out more often.  I think I'll read it again, then keep it handier for the formulas.

Lurch, my eyes are old enough that I didn't even catch the disparity of color in the different areas of her dress. Wow!

Maybe this thread should be labeled as a tutorial.  Lotsa great information about color.

Have a wonderful Sunday!

GK

[Jonas.Wendorf]

Wow, I'm impressed by the number of replies, thank you all :-)!
I'll try to answer them all one by one :-).

@glennab: Thanks for the tip with the levels adjustment, I readjusted the levels, corrected the color and tried to define the hand a little more (much easier now with the reference photos). Big thanks!

@lurch: No, unfortunately I missed the Amy Dresser show but I'm still hoping for a rebroadcast :-(. I tried to darken the upper side of her right arm a bit to make it tapper more, is that about what you had in mind? The technique with the gamma slider sounds a bit like color correction with the neutral gray pipette which is one of my favorites :-). Nice readjustment with the selective color layer! I also neutralized (desaturated) the dress, but it seems a bit blue by now (at least for me but I think that comes from staring at the image for a long time ;-)).

@MarCat: The info about the relations between yellow and magenta were pretty interesting, I guess I now came up with something a little more in the range :-). Blurring the fingers a bit did help indeed, good tip!

@Hannie: Wow, that's about the biggest smiley I've ever seen  ::). I tried to add some more shading (and darkened the whole side of the arm, making it look better in my opinion).

@glennab again: Yes, I read it :-). It's harder not to take another photo but if you don't want to, then I won't do it :-).

Thanks again for the great tips, I hope, this is a lot better, as you all helped me achieve this new version!

[Mhayes]

Jona, I think she looks marvelous! Great job on fixing the contrast and skin tones.

Margie

[lurch]

Beautiful, Jonas! BTW, the dress looks neutral to my eyeball (didn't look at the info palette to confirm), but it could be a bit brighter. You could try moving the white point slider in levels, or maybe using Selective Color to take black out of the white tones.

[Hannie]

Jonas, what a beautiful job, shading on the hands looks great!
Here's my try at brightening up the dress a little...

[glennab]

Jonas, you really aced it. What a fabulous team effort.   My only pick was the dress.  It looked a bit dingy after you did the desat.  Her skin color is great, and her hair is gorgeous.  I'm glad you were able to use the hands to glean a bit more detail in her hand.

I missed something...  your comment "@glennab again: Yes, I read it :-). It's harder not to take another photo but if you don't want to, then I won't do it :-)." eludes me.  But then I'm the woman who left work at the end of last week, said good evening to everyone and when they wished me a great weekend I replied "Is it Friday?"  DUH - and sad!.  Will you elucidate for me?  (a special word for Hannie - and a cute aside: I asked one of our publication managers to elucidate for me, and his response was "Hell no; I'm a married man!")

G'night all

GK

[Hannie]

 ;D

(nice solecism!)

[glennab]

Nice one, Hannie!  The "Walking Dictionary" had to go to the online dictionary.

[kiska]

me too.

[Jonas.Wendorf]

So a (final?) update :-)



I brightened her dress, gave it a little contrast and finally brightened the right side a little more to make it fit better.