Input Needed - Latest Disaster

[Ausimax]

HI,

This is my latest effort, still a work in progress but I would like your comments.








Max

[Kenny]

It's looking really good, Max!  :up:

The skin tones look a little yellow to me. I did a companion to this pic. At least now I know what that thing is beside Santa's head  :funny:

[glennab]

Hi Max

I only see a couple of things I'd tweak.  I agree with Kenny that the skin tones need to be warmed up a bit.  I'd also match the color of Santa's hat to his suit and get a little grain into the suit, since it looks rather flat.  Otherwise, looks good!

GG

[Kenny]

You know, it's funny. After spending numerous hours working on a photo you feel like you get to know the people in it. I saw this photo and I immediately thought "I know that girl!".

I love doing this :)


Kenny

[Ausimax]

Hi, Slasher, glennab, thanks for your comments, I agree on all counts, the skin colour is a problem, I haven't actually started on this image yet, I knew the yellow cast was going to be a problem, so I just started playing around to see what I could do about it.

I opened an adjustment layer of every colour control tool in the menu, and could find nothing that would correct the colour,
Curves was the only thing that would take it to white, and that was flat white no hint of detail and it destroyed every other colour in the image.

So then I went to channels, the red channel brought out the white nicely as a monotone, so I converted the red channel to an image file, then selected and copied all the white bits into the working image.

The other colours in the image were not too bad, so I could work with them, that only left the hands and faces with the yellow cast, what I have done so far is to select those bits and use a Hue & Saturation adjustment layer to try and achieve a more natural skin tone, worked reasonably well on Santa, but not on the little girls face.

I tried to find a colour to match skin tone to apply to a overlay layer to try and improve the colour, without any success, I'll have another go today, however if anybody has any hints on how to get this right I would be very grateful, I find colour problems a real pain.

Thanks again for taking the time to help with this, I find it invaluable to get the advantage of other sets of eyes, you spend so long looking at the image you start to loose you objectivity.

I agree with you Kenny, you spend so much time with these people they almost become like family members, you feel you know them so well.

Max

PS. Just fitted another 512 Mb ram to my computer so that should help a bit, now if I can just find a program that knows how to restore photos I'll be laughing!  :funny:

[Kenny]

Max, I had the same problem with the restoration I did for the same family. The color is so destroyed I couldn't restore it by any adjustments I tried. Yours looks good except for the skin tone. I finally had to colorize my entire image. I believe all yours would need is to colorize the skin.

It would be nice if Photoshop had a desaturate tool. (It might and I just don't know about it). What I did was use two images. One totally desaturated and one in full color on another layer above the desaturated one. I used my erase tool with a soft brush to remove the parts I wanted desaturated, then merged the layers.


Anyway, just a suggestion.


Kenny  :)

[cmpentecost]

Hi Max,

I played around with your image for a few minutes, trying to come up with some solutions.  Do you have CS2?  If so, perhaps try the Photo Filter in the layer adjustments under the layers pallete.  I went to a blue filter, which cooled the colors a little bit.  Because it creates a layer mask, you can "erase" areas that you didn't want affected.  Then, if you feel you still need a bit of color, or rosiness for Santa's nose, make a new layer, choosing a soft paintbrush, reduce the paintbrush opacity and flow to something very low, and pick a nice pinkish skin toned color.  In my quick playing, I chose a pink, reduce the opacity and flow to around 15% each and gave Santa and the little girl subtle rosy cheeks.  It's not perfect, but I didn't want to spend too much time on a picture that eventually is yours to conquer.  No guarantee that this will provide you with the results you are looking for, but it's something I used on another picture that seemed to work nicely.  Good luck, and I'll be anxious to see the final results!

Christine

[Ausimax]

Thanks Kenny, I watched as you did yours, nice job, colour damage is a real pain, I'll have a look and see if I can use your method, or find a tool that will do it, haven't found out what half of PS's tools do yet.

Christine, your post just came in. Thanks for your ideas, they could be a real help, it is the things you don't think of until somebody points you in the right direction that make these forums so valuable.

Will have to get my head down and apply all my new found knowledge, thanks again.

Max

[havril]

Hi Max
Try this. Open a new layer, set it in overlay mode and make its opacity about 60%. Get a pink colour as your foreground colour and with the brush paint over the skin areas. If the result isn't exactly correct, delete and play around with the colours until you are happy.

Harvey

[havril]

Kenny I think the desaturation tool your are looking for is the sponge tool set to desaturation. It is hidden under the dodge or burn tools.

Harvey

[Kenny]

Thanks Harvey! That's Soooooo much easier than the way I've been doing it!  :D

[glennab]

Hi Max

Another possibility is to select the areas you want to warm up, give them a slight feather, go to adjustments, selective color, and choose neutrals. Drag the yellow slider to the negative and see if that helps, or select yellow and decrease yellow and add magenta.

GG

[Ausimax]

Hey Folk,

Thank you all for your great advice, this is the next generation, using Christine's method, I think it looks more natural - but I have tried so many alternatives I don't even know what it should look like.

Comments welcomed, it may be time I worked on something else for a while and have a look at it with a clear mind later.



Max

[glennab]

Hey Max

It worked!  Their faces look much more natural.

A question - and I'm sorry I didn't catch this last night - it was WAY past my bed time.  Is it possible that the little guy (or girl) is wearing blue jeans?  This morning I'm noticing the details on the overalls, and they look like jeans. That would lead me to believe that there's too much yellow in the clothing as well.  You might be able to test that by going to your original and using the Curves eyedroppers -- the middle one will set the grey tones if you can find something in the image that you know would be in that range (possibly something in Santa's beard or the fur trimmings).  It might get rid of the yellow cast and allow you to get a better rendition of the original tones.

Have a wonderful day!

GG

[Ausimax]

Hi glennab,

I don't think her suit was blue, the mortar in the bricks is green, and I doubt if it would have been blue and any colour change should have effected it also.

I tried the curves eyedroppers on the original image to try and colour correct it, only made it worse, it must be a characteristic of the water damage that the colour casts don't respond as a normal exposure colour cast.

Still have it on the back burner, may have another look at it tomorrow, thanks for your care and suggestions.

Max