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WIP: The Bride

Started by rsvadnie, October 21, 2017, 10:06:22 AM

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rsvadnie

Hi guys! I wanted to share my work so far on my first official restore. :)

Original


It's hard to see here but there's a lot of crackling on the face and the veil as well.

WIP



So, Photoshop ATE my first file with two weeks worth of work. I've never had Photoshop completely corrupt a file like that. >:( So after giving the program an exorcism, I started a new file and ran a dust and scratches filter; that took care of the easier bits. Then I used a series of median filters with layer masks made from different channels to fill some of the smaller cracks and white spots, as well as eat away at the edges of some of the larger damage. For the damage that remained I created a series of masks from a flattened copy of the repair work done so far and used that with the spot heal brush on different settings to tackle as much as I could.

Now I'm working on reconstructing the areas that I can't otherwise repair: Rebuilding the lips, the left side of her hair, lower parts of her dress sleeve, parts of the veil. I've been making patches from other parts of the image as much as I can. I created a patch for the lips based on a stock model and used the puppet warp function to fine tune the angle.

There is some fine color damage that I've got to tackle as well. Then I'll probably fine tune the lighting and contrast from my global repair layers.

So I've got my venti iced coffee with an extra shot and the people at this Starbucks know me well, so I can camp out of a while and do some more work chipping away at the big gaps. :)

Lynnya

Hey welcome to the party rsva :up: :up: congratulations on your first reatore and THANK YOU for posting your work in progress.. we love to see other people's work and share tips and ideas.  Your bride is looking good so far - little bit of a green color cast on my screen. Sorry about photoshop eating your work.. that's NASTY... two weeks is a lotta work...

There is a lot less damage showing in the blue channel on her hair... maybe you can use that. Looking forward to seeing you around the cooler with the rest of the gang.

Lynn
never giving up......learning from others as I go...

Shadow

We're with Lynn ... great to see you posting your work. We learn so much from each other.  :(  Curse that misbehaving PS! After that happened to me I began keeping a separate copy of my WIPs in a backup folder. It has saved my bacon a couple of times.
Two things that jumped out at me ... in PS, your image opens up with untagged RGB for the color space. They usually come with sRGB for the color space. Every once in a while one will slip by and be something else but it's important to verify that. Maybe check with your distributor if you have a question about it.
Like Lynn, I see a greenish color cast on my screen. Doing your color correction first before any repairs will save you lots of headaches down the road. There are some good work flow suggestions in the Techniques Handbook.
Enjoy your coffee. Look forward to your next WIP!

rsvadnie

Yikes—thanks for the note about the untagged RGB! I'll go back into my PS and see what's going on with the colorspace settings. And yep, there is a greenish cast on the posted image; I had one of my universal layers turned off like a genius. :P I'll recheck my initial color correction layers again and make sure everything is okay.


Shadow

Good morning. Always helps to have another set of eyes check things out. Don't you love when it's an easy fix like turning a layer back on!

Mhayes

Welcome to the party rsvadnie. I'm going to wait till you have a chance to get your color mode corrected and post your progress. You have pick a really difficult one, but this will be fun to work through. I'm sure you are thinking: "Yeah, right!" I know because my first restore was a real mess, to the point of being a non-restore. We will help and it is great to have advice from those who are used to this kind of damage. Not sure, but you may also want to ask your distributor if there are any other photos of the bride you can use for reference.

Margie
"carpe diem"

Margie Hayes
OPR President
[email protected]

Hannie

#6
Hi rsvadnie, welcome to the forum and congratulations on your first OPR restore!
This photo has several areas of staining and that will throw off the color correction some.  You will probably end up having to correct twice, once to concentrate on the the good parts of the face and dress and then after stain removal another one.

This is what I got after a simple Levels adjustments in R, G and be separately and a Curves gray point in a fold of the curtain.


Hannie Scheltema
Distribution Coordinator
[email protected]

rsvadnie

#7
Thanks again for all the feedback! Hannie, you're right. There's quite a bit of color variation underneath the initial damage (there's some very fine reddish/orange damage that I haven't tackled yet) so it will take two passes. My distributor mentioned that the color might not be recoverable, so black and white will be fine, but I really want to try.

I've been working on filling in the cracks and reconstructing areas like her hair and dress. It's not done yet—I need to blend the patched areas and bring back some of the textures/detail from the original once the core work is finished—but I'm still working. :)  It's a challenge, but it is fun to try and find a way to make it work!

Latest iteration...



Also, I checked the settings in Photoshop and everything is on sRGB; I hope it translated to the posted image! *crossing fingers*

Bambi

I agree with Hannie about color correction. When I have a photograph that badly discolored, I repair the damage, then color correct. This is a tricky restoration. And you're making great progress on it. Welcome.

Mhayes

#9
We each have our way of working a photo and what ever work best for you. Personally I do the color correction first. On this photo I would hate working with original as it is. My thoughts are that if you do the color correction first--at least the initial one, then you can tweak and not have strange results if you wait till the last to color correct.

The other option would be to turn this into a B/W (still in sRGB mode) and work out the damage and then colorize. I find this harder, but sometimes it works out really good.

Margie
"carpe diem"

Margie Hayes
OPR President
[email protected]

rsvadnie

#10
Hi Margie!

Yep—color correction is always my first step! I did a first round of color correction on this image.



This is with the globals and repairs together.



The highlights on the curtains need to be pulled back. As I started working, subtle color shifts emerged that I found as I started working on the curtains. The highlights on the dress and curtains have always seemed hot in the initial pass. I tried a couple of different methods—I found a lot of great techniques in the handbook and forum posts that gave me some other options to try—and the basic levels adjust gave me the best result to start.


Hannie

Starting to look great rsvadnie!
Hannie Scheltema
Distribution Coordinator
[email protected]

Mhayes

Rsvadnie,  :up2:  :up2:  You picked a tough one and great progress.

Margie
"carpe diem"

Margie Hayes
OPR President
[email protected]

Shadow

Looking good so far Rscadnie. Have you surpassed your usual iced coffee intake?  ;) Look forward to your next WIP or final!

Candice

The bride will be blushing once more.
Candice