Feedback Needed, Thanks

[Ausimax]

Hi,

This is my latest restoration.



I have been having quite a bit of trouble trying to reconstruct the boys head, this is my fall-back if I can't successfully restore the original head.



The head is still a work in progress, I'm gradually getting it better, but getting it just right, is eluding me, maybe tomorrow with fresh eyes, it will come.



Any suggestions on how to improve it would be appreciated, by the way, does anyone know a way to stop the healing brush tool from sampling darker colours when you are working close to them? I thought working within a selection was supposed to restrict the action of tools to within the selected area, the healing brush tool still samples outside the selection, thats what caused the dark line just above the shirt neckline, then when you clone that out you end up with a light coloured line. Oh woe is me.

Max

[glennab]

Hi Max

Wowser bowser -- that's a tough one.  I think you'd be better off to keep the boy in the same position as in the original and clone and position what you can from the opposite side of his face.  I suspect someone is very fond of that shy smile -- and the integrity of the photo would be retained.

You integrated his forward-facing visage really well, but I'd go for the look of the original.

I'm not sure, and I have to rush off to work so I can't test it, but is it possible that you have anti-alias on?  That could affect your healing brush and patch tools.  I'm finding them not as useful as I'd thought I would, because of the discrepancy in color all over the photos I've done.

Good luck!  What a job!

GG

[Ratz]

Hi Max, what a difficult one you have there! You are doing a great job with it up to this point :up:.The fallback looks good, but I agree with Glenna that it's preferable to retain that cheeky smile.I'm also interested in the answer to the healing brush question as I have encountered the same problem and it's na real pain! Good luck with it all, Regards Ratz. :)

[cmpentecost]

A selection around the area you are working should work.  Why it isn't, I'm not sure.  You could also add a layer mask after making your selection.  I played around with it both ways, and the Healing brush always stayed within the selected area.

Sorry I can't offer more.

Christine

[Carol]

 Max wrote:   by the way, does anyone know a way to stop the healing brush tool from sampling darker colours when you are working close to them?

Are you working with the 'sample all layers' option ticked.  If so, try unticking this to see if it makes a difference.  A selection should restrict your sampling to that particular area. This may be the reason, otherwise, I am not sure.

If that fails, aviod using the healing brush in contrasty areas.  Instead, you could try using the cloning stamp.  It often helps to set the opacity to a lower value and use a relatively soft brush to avoid over-sharp edges.

[glennab]

Hi again Max

While I was working on my restoration this afternoon, I looked at the options for the healing brush and cloning tools.  Couldn't find an anti-alias function with them, so that's not it.  I think Christine and Caroll's suggestion of using a selection is a great one.  You won't get anything from outside the selected area and you can feather it slightly so the edge isn't hard.

I'm still finding that the cloning tool works best for me on a separate layer, with "use all layers" selected.  I jump between 50% to 80% most of the time, to keep cloned areas from being too harsh.  Great shortcuts for the clone tool are to use the number keys for your percentages.  If you type a number once you'll get a percentage of flow (i.e. 8 for 80%) and upper case of the number will give you the percentage of opacity.  If you hit 8 twice, you'll get 88.  I don't get that picky, but the shortcuts are a great time-saver.

I'd love to know if any of you has found a good use for the healing and patch tools.  I'm disappointed that they don't seem to serve my purposes at all.

Have a great weekend!

GG

[Ausimax]

Thanks all for your feedback and advice, re: the Healing brush tool, tried everything with it and still the same problem, it will sample outside a selected area, seems the only way to avoid colour bleed near darker colours is to make a selection and copy to a new layer or use a mask.
glennab, I find the healing brush tool good for working in open areas it will often restore badly effected areas if the original colour and texture is still underneath, and it is good for returning texture to cloned areas.

All that said here is the result of my labours, this seems to be about as good as I can get it, hopefully his mother will still recognise him, I will probably upload both this and the alternate then the powers that be, can decide. Anyway let me know what you think.




Max

[glennab]

Hi Max

I think you did a fine job on his features, but something is awry to my eyes.  I keep scrolling up and down to see the before and after, and the only thing that strikes me is that  the features you re-created seem too low in proportion to the rest of his face.  My old eyes aren't up to allowing me to be more specific, because it's difficult to see the fine points on my monitor (oh how I long for an Apple 23-inch flat screen!).  You're probably right in submitting the restoration to admin if you feel you've gone as far as you can. I did that, and I got really great feedback from Mike on one of my photos -- it just needed a little tweaking that I'd missed, and that made all the difference in the world.

It's special to me that you're so far away and yet you put so much of yourself into these images.  You Aussies are truly wonderful!  Thanks for caring so much about your American cousins!

And thanks for the feedback on the healing tool.  I'll have to try a few things and see if I can put it to better use.

Best wishes,

GG

[milanab]

i think it looks very good but i think it is an issue of shading on the new side to give it the dimension the other side has.  it looks more rounded maybe without shadows.. but it is a tremendous restoration.  i have tried one with a faded body part and was frustrated at my lack of ability.  now i go through the difficult like this, oops missing hand, oops missing foot, oops missing etcetc..until i find one i can tackle.. :-[

[vhansen]

Max,
I think you've done a fine job on the clean up but see some issues with the boy.  Most noticeble is that he has lost his photographic appearance.  I can see that you did a great deal of artwork to reconstruct his features, however I think that is where the problem lies.  It is purely my opinion, but I think painting in missing features does not work for restorations.  Although it is a very common practice, I don't think it's the right approach. What's really needed are good copy and paste skills, along with good layer masking skills.   

I notice that you've replaced the eye that was visible in the photograph with one that you've painted.  I'm guessing your intent was to match the overall appearance of the eye you needed to create.  Whenever possible, one should leave as much of the original as possible.  You should leave the eye and work to get the added eye to match the original, not the other way around. 

All that said, bottom line suggestion is, painting in features should be your very last resort (if at all).  Although the Admins here have discouraged using parts from other images, if it's done correctly, it can work and help retain the photographic quality of the image.  In the partial example I've posted, I copied and pasted his sister's cheek, chin, and nose for replacements.  I used his good eye and part of his mouth to replace the missing parts.  These were all put on seperate layers over the original.  Layer masks were used to blend them all together. 

I hope I haven't overstepped  the "feedback" boundries, as my intention is to offer advice that may be useful for future projects.

[milanab]

to roughly quote rex harrison in my fair lady " she's got it, she's got it, by george i think she's got it"  that was what it needed.  until i compared the two i had not noticed it was the photo appearance that was missing

[Ausimax]

Thanks for all your help, can't say I am completely happy with the result, the only trouble is the damage is much more severe in the hi-res version, actually I haven't done any painting in any of the images, the head-shot was all built up of parts cloned from the "good" side of his face, and as you can see the eyes aren't good and that was his right eye after it was restored and copied mirror imaged to the other side, most of the good side  looks like one of those oil paintings that is done with a palette knife, just great globs of paint heaped up without rhyme or reason and then looks absolutely marvellous when you step back about 10 feet.

The last copy, was all the right side of his face and the top of his head mirror reversed from the same image as I used for the "Alternate" reconstruction, blended and adjusted to try and make it fit the features of the original.
I tried to reconstruct using cloned parts because my artistic abilities are limited to zero, so painting in anything is hopeless.

One of the main problems I think is the eyes, as said the good eye is bad, so I took the eyes of the other image, and then they were looking the wrong way so I had to change those, and they just don't look right.

I may have another go at it and see if I can get it better, at present I like the alternate better, it looks much more natural.

Another thing that doesn't help is that these photos seem to have been scanned at a very low resolution, previous images I have had were 7x5s and were over 5 MB in file size, these are 11x14s and are just over 2 MB in size, so when you try to zoom in to work with detail they are pixelated.

vhansens reconstruction looks great, sure you wouldn't like me to send you hi-res copies of the heads to try?

Thank you all for taking the time to reply and giving me the benefit of your skills.

Max

[cmpentecost]

Hang in there Max.  I've redone hairlines multiple times, as well as eyes, lips, ears, and clothing.  Sometimes, it just takes a break from the photo, and then return with fresh eyes.  I think you've done a great job on a difficult photo, and you have to complete it to the satisfaction that meets your eyes.  I save my images at several stages, so if I get too far along and don't like it, I can go back a few steps, and try again.

Good Luck!
Christine :up:

[Ausimax]

Hi Folks,

Here it is, the last, and defiantly final (I think) version. Damnation, I think I now know this boy better than my own sons.

Let me know what you think, your input and encouragement has been invaluable to me, I think however this is about as far as I can take it, there has been no doubt that since I joined OPR it has been a great learning experience, only hope it is being reflected in the quality of my work.

Look forward to your comments.



Max

[Peter_AUS]

Max, this is very good considering what you started with.  On this image, I still see a bit of marks near the girls left shoulder on the boy's blue shirt and I would also clean up the background a little more as well.

But if you are submitting it, then go for it.

Take a bow as well.