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Family Christmas Picture

Started by TheGryphon, September 07, 2017, 09:43:01 PM

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TheGryphon

This is my first project for OPR, and the first time tackling a picture this damaged. This picture probably falls in between an Easy to Moderate image restore, by the sites definitions.  I know I got some more work to do, but here is my progress so far.  I have focused most of my attention on the right border where most of the damage lies.
Personally I am pretty happy with the progress so far.  I am far from done, I want to see about getting the TV looking better. I am not sure how I am going to tackle the knick knacks on top of the TV and on the shelf above it.   I am open to feedback, I am completely new to doing photo restore on this level.  In the past I just did color correction and maybe fixing some cracks in pictures that were relatively easy to fix, where I knew what it should look like.  That right edge is so destroyed... well it is interesting trying to restore it.


Original


Work in progress, part 1


Work in progress, part 2


Work in progress, part 3
Patrick Feehan


Work smarter, not harder      - Allan H. Mogensen

Mhayes

Welcome to the forum Grypton and great job on your first restore. I can't decide if I think the woman's face is a little blown out or not. Will let others weigh in on that one. Your right about the right edge being destroyed, but when you see a photo with the red and yellow streaks, trying going into channels and looking at the blue channel. It will give you a better idea what is on the top shelf.

Good work and hope to see you again on the forum.

Margie
"carpe diem"

Margie Hayes
OPR President
[email protected]

Hannie

#2
Great job Patrick, congratulations on your first OPR restore!

I agree with Margie that the lady's face is a tad blown out.  That is easily fixed with a Curves layer, White dropper on the boys shoe.

She also looks a little pale now than in the original and you could fix that by finding a warmer balance, you can try out different neutral spots in the background using a new Curves layer and the Gray dropper.

On more pick, well not really a pick but more a suggestion.   :)
When you post your work in progress it is easier for volunteers to to view only the original photo and the last version of your work. 



Hannie
Hannie Scheltema
Distribution Coordinator
[email protected]

Shadow

Hi Patrick. Good to see you here. Agree with Hannie and Margie on the lady's face. Hannie's tips will take care of that. You've come a long way on this one. Will watch for your next WIP

Bambi

Excellent work so far. So glad you're sharing your work in progress with us.

Mike S.

Thanks for Posting on the Forum Patrick,

Good work so far.

Mike
Mike S.

TheGryphon

I had some personal stuff to take care of which got in the way of working on the picture, but I am back at it again.
Thanks for all the tips, I played with the colors for an hour last night but wasn't really happy with my results so I did not keep them.  I think I will continue to focus on fixing the damaged portions for now and see about color corrections when I am closer to being finished with the picture. 
Here is my latest work in progress.
Patrick Feehan


Work smarter, not harder      - Allan H. Mogensen

Lynnya

Hi Patrick.. beautiful job so far.  The mom and baby still look some pale and a tad yellowish on my screen..I tried a "multiply" layer which helped a bit.. others will have input as well I'm sure.  Hannie is the skin color expert  :)  Thanks for sharing your work.
never giving up......learning from others as I go...

TheGryphon

I still have not messed with the color as I am keeping my focus for now on fixing the image
There wasn't enough of the right most bear for me to bring back nor could I find an image of the bear online, so I did the next best thing and mirrored the other half of the bear.  Though when zoomed all the way in on the the bear, it looks a bit sinister....  but in normal view I think it looks quite good. 
The shirt was quite tricky to restore, but I am quite happy the way that turned out as well.
Just a little more work and then I can try and tackle the color problem.



Patrick Feehan


Work smarter, not harder      - Allan H. Mogensen

TheGryphon

#9
Except for color I think I am pretty much done restoring this picture.  Please let me know if you see anything I missed or can improve on besides the color in the faces.

I have been messing with color tools such as Curves, Hue / Saturation, and Levels, but I don't seem to be familiar enough with the tools to use them as effectively as some of you.  I played with them for an hour and not really liking any changes I tried making. 

If anyone can recommend any good online reading / training material, I would like to learn how to use the tools more effectively, and would appreciate it. 

To get this project done and the picture back into the families hands if someone can fix the colors for me it would be much appreciated.  Also it would show me what color tones I am striving for, so once I have some training material I can see if I can duplicate what you did.

Patrick Feehan


Work smarter, not harder      - Allan H. Mogensen

Mhayes

Patrick,

I know it is easy to get overwhelmed with color correction at the start, especially when you see posts where there are lots of tweaking going on. However, color correction is something that has to happen first and not last. To the right you will see "Techniques Handbook." That PDF shows different ways to color correct. If you were only to pick Levels and go to the pull down and pull the sliders on each side (R-G-B) so they are at the edge of the black--you would be improving the photo. Even easier is to go to Curves and there is button that says "Auto" and a lot of times that does the trick. After awhile you will feel more comfortable in tweaking. You have come a long way improving this photo--Kudos.

Margie
"carpe diem"

Margie Hayes
OPR President
[email protected]

Shadow

Hi Patrick. Thanks for sharing your work. There are some real gurus on this site, so my first recommendation would be to follow Margie's tip and then go back through the Easy, Moderate and  Photoshop Discussion sections and see how different suggestions helped with the color correction and color casts etc. Last year Margie started this thing where you had to show your work and not just the image. A treasure trove of suggestions, tips, and knowledge was shared through the feedback.

If you want more tutorial type help, you might find the following helpful:

Katrin Eisman  If you look her up, you can find lots of her tutorials for free or you can get her awesome book. Here's a great example with video - http://www.dpbestflow.org/photo-restoration

Phlern  The guy does beautiful work and his free tutorials are excellent. Lynn and I both have shared multiple links from his sites.

Lynda.com  Taz Tally and plenty of others can walk you through PS color correction (you can join for one month and learn plenty)
 

Lynnya

Hi Patrick.. Great job on the repairs.. looks really good.  I tried color correcting the original with levels as Margie described.. it's the first thing I do when restoring.. this young woman's face is very much on the pale side and I had a hard time giving her a good color.. I tried a new layer in multiply blend mode and reduced the opacity a lot and it improved a bit but still not optimal.  I think Hannie will have the answer to this problem.. she's somewhere under her desk messin with her computer right now but will be back soon.. She's a real color guru.  Shadow may also be able to come up with a good skin tone.

To me, this skin was not that easy to correct so don't feel bad.  Between the whole lot of us we'll come up with something  :up: :up:
never giving up......learning from others as I go...

TheGryphon

The first thing was to allow Paint.net to auto level the picture.  Which to my eyes seemed an overall improvement to the picture, but it makes me feel better that I am not the only one having trouble finding a good color tone with this picture.  I have spent a few hours here and there trying to mess with the color... I can make the guys denim pop more but not sure if that would be faithful to the original color.  I messed around and managed to get the wood grain to pop more too, but that took away from my restoration of that part of the picture, but skin tone just continued to elude me.  I can make her hair pop a little more too... but I don't think that is necessarily the goal here.
I did most of my restoration work in Paint.net but it's color tools are not overly robust, I switched to editing the photo in GIMP, it has an almost over abundance of color tools, which I been messing with but mostly similar results, not finding a good skin tone.
Patrick Feehan


Work smarter, not harder      - Allan H. Mogensen

Lynnya

Patrick I think your restore is great! it's just the skin tones causing us problems.. the rest of your image looks perfect to me.. Hannie will be back next week.. Tuesday or Wednesday hopefully.. she'll be a great help with those pesky skin tones.. hang in there :up: :up:
never giving up......learning from others as I go...