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Cutie holding toy

Started by Marydh, January 14, 2019, 01:37:45 PM

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Marydh

Hi there.  Boy, I could use all your eyes and expertise.  Have no idea how to fix his left arm and hand.  Arrrgh.
Any suggestions on anything are welcome.
Thanks,
Mary




Jo Ann Snover

Cutie is right!

I think there are a couple of issues with his hands - one being that you've amputated a finger that was tucked under the yellow handle of his toy!

I drew some outlines over the original and then put them over your WIP to try and show where the differences are. This cropped portion is at 200% to see better. I hope that helps

His fingers and hands are really rounded and the back of his hand on the right side of the photo has been flattened out - the shading needs to show that as very round.


Jo Ann

Marydh

Thanks Jo Ann.  I couldn't tell WHAT that finger was doing. There's a handle?
Yeah, I know that the back of his hand is too flat, but that's my problem.  I don't know how to use shading to plump it up.  I would really appreciate some hints.  I tried to find an example to follow but came up short.  I need a shading course.

Marydh

But I'm going to keep trying.

Jo Ann Snover

Let me see if I be more specific - the "handle" was the rectangular yellow object the baby is holding. I don't actually know what it is. Be back in a bit
Jo Ann

Marydh

Gotcha.  I'm giving it another go.  I'll post in a bit I hope.

Jo Ann Snover

Take a look at this quick and dirty edit of your WIP



I decided I was wrong about the hands on the right side of the photo - what I thought was an amputated finger was the side of his pudgy finger. You can't see the thumb on that hand.

For general reference for pudgy hands look at this stock photo

https://image.shutterstock.com/z/stock-photo-baby-laughing-and-playing-with-colorful-toys-sitting-on-a-carpet-at-home-1012231402.jpg

For shading, it's about figuring out the light source and how it casts shadows on the shapes - and often the damaged original can still give clues for that. Sometimes I have a separate layer set to multiply blend mode and just put blurry shadows there - on top of the restore. You paint in very light grays. It helps if you don't really need much shadow and you don't want to mess with the restored area when there wasn't a good shadow to clone from - so you have the right color and texture but no variations for highlight and shadow.

Lots of art tutorials on line that cover basics of representing 3D objects in 2D space (like pencil drawing tutorials) if you wanted to read more.

Hope this helps a bit
Jo Ann

Marydh

Thanks so much Jo Ann.  Is this better?


Jo Ann Snover

The back of the hand on the railing side is much better.  The crease in the skin at the wrist shouldn't go all the way to the edge - look at the elbow on the other side and how the crease disappears into the rounded flesh at the bend.

If you look at the fingers and how they meet the hand, you have too much space where there should be pudgy flesh. Put my crude version as a layer over yours and turn it on and off. You'll see where the differences are - there's part of the yellow rectangle that extends a bit further, for example.
Jo Ann

Marydh

Thanks Jo Ann.  I'll do some more tweaking.  How about the rest of it?

Jo Ann Snover

#10
The only general comments would be about bringing back lost highlights - the original was too dark, but in lightening it overall the baby's cheeks, chin, forehead and nose got too light. Same with the crib blanket which lost all its pattern.

Several ways to deal with that - my preferred is to leave the overall adjustment as is and add a curves adjustment layer set to multiply blend mode and masked with black. Just paint in some of the too-bright areas until you can see color again. If image highlights start looking gray, you've gone too far!

I also noticed that your forum versions (original and WIP) were in the Adobe RGB color space, not sRGB as I thought all the OPR photos needed to be. If you received a damaged original as Adobe RGB, perhaps check with your distributor?

Back to the hands area! With the yellow top of the toy he's playing with, try to square up the shape overall (I didn't in my quick and dirty). There are some bends and slopes in it that don't match the original and ideally you should be able t see the rectangle under the little fingers.

Very close :)
Jo Ann

Marydh

Confused on the RGB thing.  When I go to Edit..Color Settings it says sRGB.  But I see in Bridge that they say RGB.  How would I change that?

Jo Ann Snover

Perhaps download the original again to be sure the damaged file is sRGB. I'm on a mac, and if you look at File Info (and I think there's some sort of properties dialog on windows) it says

Color space: RGB
Color profile sRGB IEC61966-2.1

for my most recent restore.

Edit->Color Settings is not about an image; it's about your default preferences in Photoshop. You can have Photoshop alert you if you open files that don't match your preferences, but I just say "Preserve Embedded profiles"

For Photoshop (I use CS6 but this has been the same for many years), if you want to see the profile of an image you open, go to File Info and scroll across to the Advanced Tab. In Photoshop properties it'll tell you the color profile

Or - this is faster and what I typically do - go to Edit -> Convert to Profile (NOT assign profile) and see what it says about Source Space. That's what your current image is. Then click Cancel to avoid changing it.

I never use Bridge, so I don't remember what's where it its interface :)

The real issue is to work out how the profile was changed as that shouldn't have happened.

Changing a profile back is just using Convert to Profile and making sure you do not flatten the image (look at the check boxes at the bottom of the dialog).
Jo Ann

Marydh

I have a Mac and use CC. I "redownloaded" the original, this is what it shows:


Jo Ann Snover

Ask your distributor about that - as I recall from prior forum posts, all files were supposed to be sRGB. Posts such as this, for example

http://www.operationphotorescue.org/forum/index.php/topic,4853.msg41685.html#msg41685

The only way the file could be like that if it really was sRGB before you opened it is if your color settings say to convert images to your working color space. You might want to check that.

You could also use the Finder's File Info dialog without opening the original in Photoshop to see what it says for Color profile (it's under the "More Info" section)
Jo Ann