Glenna's Latest Challenge

[glennab]

All my guru friends:

I think these folks are about ready to go home.  I'd be grateful if you'd check it out and make any suggestions for improvement before I send them back.  Kenny and Max -- you got me through the suit.  It went so well last night.  Thanks so much!

And Max, I think I got a little more countour due to your feedback about the slight burning.




If any of you feels more needs to be done, please don't hesitate to tell me.  I don't have my ego tied up in this.  I just want it to be the best it can be without my "perfecting" it to a contrived look.

All of you who helped me with this are my angels.  I can't thank you enough.  And I can tell you that your honest assessment of my work has been treasured. I send all of you hugs!

Have a most wonderful day!

GG

[Kenny]

Glenna, the only issue I see is the man and woman's hands. They look a little flat, as Max says. A little light shading would probably do the trick. Other than that, this one is ready!



Kenny :)

[glennab]

Kenny -- I guess tonight it'll be "burn, baby, burn" -- then one more post and hopefully that'll wrap it up.  Thanks much for your assessment.

Best to you as always,

GG

[Kenny]

Glenna, burning works but sometimes it gives weird colors. I like to just use a soft brush set to a low opacity and paint black shading on a new layer. Then, use the Gaussian blur until it smooths out. Then you can clean up the edges with the eraser set with a soft brush. And, of course, you can adjust the opacity of the layer itself.

It's given me better results than burning for certain things.


Kenny :)

[glennab]

Kenny -- good thought, because I have so many layers the burn might not work well.  And I've experienced the weird color syndrome with burning at times, too.  What a learning experience!  Thanks!

GG

[cmpentecost]

Glenna,

What I've had to do when I've had many layers, but am near enough to the end to do my dodging and burning, is to save the file with the layers, then flatten the layers, and work with burn and dodge as necessary.  When doing this, I'll use a soft brush and put the opacity at say, 50%, knowing it's still too much, but I use it as a starting point.  I then do Ctrl>Shift>F (Windows) and choose a very low number, say 5-15%.  I can check or uncheck the preview button to see how it looks, or, if I don't like it after clicking ok, just do a Control>Z to undo it.

I know that when you get multiple layers, the dodge and burn doesn't always work so well, as you are working on the one layer.  Too bad there isn't "sample all layers" in the dodge and burn tools.

What you've done looks great!

Chris

[Ausimax]

Glenna,

Its looking good, we sometimes loose sight on these pages just where you are coming from, I had to go back to the start to have a look at the original.  From where you started you have performed miracles, the faces still look a bit "off" but I think they are probably as good as you will get, I know from those I have done that there is not enough detail to work with and the more you fiddle the worse they get.

Not that my observations are any guide, I didn't notice that the drapes had different sized patterns until you had restored them. :-[

All in all it is about time to send them home.

I find a lot of tools behave unpredictably on multiple layers, the healing brush particularly, I often leave a lot of final adjustments until I have flattened the image.

Max

[glennab]

My friends:

ORIGINAL



FINAL?



Am I done, or do you see any more tweaks that would improve the restoration?

G'night!

GG

[Kenny]

Glenna, I think it looks pretty good. This one has been really hard and you've put in lots of time on it. Time to send it home!

It's a vast improvement over the original. While it still has parts that don't quite look original, I think that's just the nature of the beast on this one.

The owners should be thrilled when they receive it.


Kenny :)

[glennab]

Hi Kenny

Any suggestions as to what I can do to make it more than just "pretty good?"  I may not be able to take it further, but if you think there is anything specific, please let me know.  I value your opinion!

GG

[Kenny]

Glenna, it's the faces. I just tried something I haven't done before and it helped, in my opinion. Try this:

Take your finished image and merge all layers. Then, copy it. Take the original and paste it in a layer in between the two finished ones. Set the topmost layer to overlay and you'll see the faces have more of a photographic quality to them. But, then you can see damage...this is why the bottom layer is there. Using the eraser tool set to about 10 % hardness, erase the damage on the middle (the original) layer.

It's kind of an amalgam between the two and I think it helped the faces. Let me know how it works out and I'll check in later to see. I have to go out of town today, but I'll be back this afternoon sometime.


Kenny :)

[glennab]

Hi Kenny

I'm intrigued by the method you suggested and will try it - but not tonight.  I didn't get home from work until 9:45 and am toast!  I'm hoping I can get back to it tom'w night.  I did try something similar to what you suggested on a smaller scale, and it helped a little on their faces, but you're right, they're still rather flat.  Gotta fix that!

As always, thanks so much for your input.  You're an invaluable source of information!

G'night,

GG

[glennab]

Kenny, your method is working really well, except that my overall image has gotten darker.  I don't want to flatten it until I make sure I'm not missing something in the way the layers go together.  I have the original sandwiched between the two flattened restorations and have the top layer set to overlay.  The repairs are going well and using the original DOES give back dimension to the people's faces and hands. Makes a huge difference! Would you suggest that all of the original except for the skin areas I'm repairing be deleted?  Could the fact that the entire original image is still there be why everything seems so dark?

I'm also thinking that this method might help me salvage all the work I did on my Army couple before I got my new monitor.  Brace yourself; that one's coming back to haunt you soon!

Thanks for helping me make my current restoration look so much better.  I'll never cease to be amazed at the different ways Photoshop is miraculous, and how much you experts know about it.  One of these days, when I grow up, I'll be a guru too!

GG

[Kenny]

Glenna, I would delete all of the second layer except for the skin areas. If you use a soft brush on your eraser, it should blend in nicely.

Expert? Me? Ha! Nah, I'm the kid who likes to push a button to "see what happens". Sometimes it's something cool, but usually it's "oh ****" (family forum... I censored myself there) :P

[glennab]

Kenny, your description of yourself reminds me of a sailing pal from many years ago who took some college computer classes with me.  He was my partner in class, since we had to share computers, and every time the instructor would say, "Now don't touch that key yet," George, of course, would have to touch THAT KEY!  He made me crazy, because I was Ms. "follow the rules," but he always found something interesting when monkeying around with those "forbidden" keys.  You rebels make life interesting -- and sometimes even prompt some of us stiff-necks to take a few chances.  You're treasures, despite the "Oh *@!!*#" factor.

I'm hoping to post a COMPLETED restoration today.  Stay tuned!

GG