Young Man

[Shadow]

Back to B&W. Added a Threshold layer (with damage areas masked out) to find the B, G and W points. Curves layer added to set points to numbers shown. Seems flat? Would you leave black line on right in or out? Appreciate all the good eyes  ;)

[Mhayes]

Shadow,

On these photos that are B/W they are in sRGB mode because that is how they were shot and that is how we print. However, when we go to restore we don't color correct in the same way you would for a colored photo. We still keep it sRGB and the first step we could use either a Levels Adjustment in each channel or a Curves Adjustment--this is more to get the tonal range better and correct any clipping. Once you do that, what I like to do is go to the B/W Adjustments and use the scroll down to test which would look the best. Below I chose a linear adjustment.




I save my work and then did another save as and flattened my previous work. This time I duplicated the layer and did another Curves Adjustment Layer, this time I picked an area that I wanted for white--do not pick an area where the photo's layer is missing--and used the white eye dropper. This is where less is more and stop with the one eye dropper.




This maybe too light and I can adjust in other ways. A simple way without throwing everything at it, is duplicate the layer and change the mode to "Modify" and adjust the opacity. If I was to do that I would do a layer mask and paint back in only what I want. Merge the mask down and go from there.

There are many ways to approach this one, but thought this might help. On the background don't do a total white--the lighter gray will blend in better. Yes, get rid of the black line on your right.

Margie

[Shadow]

Margie, thanks for the tips and the screen shots!

[Hannie]

When i look at this image I notice that the right side lost more detail than the left side, almost like it bleached a little bit.
I took Margie's work and add a Curves layer to darken it some.  In layer mask use Gradient tool (white/black) from right (middle cheek) to left (just over the nose).
This will slightly darken the right side of the photo, adjust opacity of Curves layer if needed.

If this looks off it may be my monitor, calibrator broke.

[Lynnya]

He's really beautiful is he not  :cool:

[Mike Morrell]

0I still do quite a lot of restores on old B&W/sepia photos and I think that there are basically 4 things to keep an eye on:
- levels (use the whole range, RGB is usually fine but you could look at each channel too)
- gray point on the levels (usually OK but tweaking up or down sometimes helps)
- contrast (curves) to bring out shadows/highlights
- toning (a B&W photo with a color layer at 5%-10% opacity and 'soft light' blending mode' often looks more attractive than a neutral B&W photo) ; I usually choose a brown-orange (copper/coffee) tint in Photoshop

Nik Silver Efex Pro (one of the free Nik Photoshop plugins) is wonderful for post-processing B&W photos. I highly recommend it.

Mike

[Shadow]

Mike - thanks. And Margie and Hannie, thanks for the screenshots. They're a big help!
Here's a WIP. Went back and did as the gurus suggested. Added some final tweaking of the whites with a Soft Light 50% gray layer and painting with low opacity white/black. Merged all of that and ran a Smart blur. Lots left to do but wondered if the color looks good to you?
All comments welcome.

[Mike Morrell]

Hi Shadow,

The WIP looks good! You still have some room to tighten up the levels and personally, I think this gives his face a bit more 'presence'.  You could (optionally) add in a medium contrast curves adjustment at 15%-20% too to marginally strengthen the 'presence'. All this fine-tuning is a question of personal taste.

I think this fine-tuning is best done when the cracks in the shirt/face have been ironed out. I had a quick try using a masked Gaussian blur (5 pixels) layer and then adding in a masked layer of 'skin texture' at 50% (50% gray layer with added noise and embossed blended with 'linear light'). See what you think of the 'presence'.

Mike

Original


More Presence (Levels + 20% medium contrast)


More Presence smoothed + 8% copper tone

[Lynnya]

Hi Mike... your second pic looks good.. not keen on the "blur" of the third... takes it a bit too far into fake land I think..

[Lynnya]

Shadow your wip looks great.. I think I agree that it could benefit by a tad more contrast.. (not sure how) make it look a little stronger.. Look forward to your end product... s'gonna be lovely I know. :up:

[Shadow]

Thanks Mike and Lynn. Agree about the contrast. Going slow. As you know, I have "lost" shadows in the past with brightening and healing ...  :cool:  so want to make sure to keep the contours and shadowing of the face and still make it light enough. Hope that made sense.

[Lynnya]

It does  :hug:

[Hannie]

... As you know, I have "lost" shadows in the past with brightening and healing ...

Luckily you have a spare Shadow at home.  :P

[Shadow]

 :funny:

[Shadow]

Hannie, sorry about your misbehaving calibrator and monitor. Phooey!
Here's my current WIP. Still some cleanup left. Facial contours and shading OK? Sure would appreciate some good eyes on this and all comments, feedback and suggestions! Thanks.