How do I deal with the background?

[GP]

Hi friends  ;D

I just started with this portrait and I am wondering about the background. Do you think the colors are right after color correction. They look kind of funky to me. There are also millions of little white spots all over the place ( thank you Hannie, for going wild with the spotting machine  :mad:).

Thank you for looking....

Gerlinde

               

[Mhayes]

Hi Gerlinde,

I think the little girl looks great after your color correction. The only thing I would question would be the backdrop behind her in the studio. I am almost leaning to thinking that all of the reddish brown area on your left is damage. I think Mary's background painting might help here. I promise I will look for that link if it is not in our tutorial section.

I think Hannie felt she had to do something over the edge before her big trip!  ;D

Margie

[GP]

Thanks, Margie, for your reply. Would you say I should replace the backdrop with something similar, but less ugly? I am still searching for Mary's tut on background painting, can't find it in the tutorial section.

Gerlinde

[Mhayes]

Hi Gerlinde,

I have going through 31 pages of post from Mary and I know there was one with an example. Some of the post have the photos removed from Photobucket. I am going to buzz Mary and get her take on the one. However, I did find this on one part of a post by Mary:

About the background, I hope that you might try something different on your next restoration. I'm convinced that keeping the original background and restoring it is the best way to go.  Firstly, you will be keeping the original colors in the photo intact and more importantly it will give the entire photo a more natural appearance.  I'm talking about studio photographs here, not snapshots.  So the next time give this a try.  I use the healing brush set to replace and steal good areas from the  background trying to get as many colors and tones as I can see.  After that I set the healing brush to normal and go over the areas blending light into dark, dark into light and medium into some areas.  Sounds crazy but it works.  Think of the healing brush set to normal as a stirring stick!.  After I get it looking somewhat good I later on use some cloud type brushes to add a little more interest. I usually do this right before the photo is finished.I almost always start in the background as it sets the tone of the finished photo.  Of course there are exceptions.  You can avoid the harsh look of the main subject being pasted onto a new background this way. 

Margie

[GP]

Margie,

don't go crazy to find it. I could repair the original backdrop. My question is more related to the coloring of the backdrop. I will apply some adjustment layers specifically to the backdrop and see if this gives me any clue how it looked like originally. I have the impression, all the different colors run together and created something new.  :D

Gerlinde

[Tess (Tassie D)]

Hi Gerlinde. I get hardly any red in the background but the girl looks washed out. I think your girl with the toned down background?

[Mhayes]

Gerlinde,

What do you mean by go crazy! I'm already there!  ;D I did buzz Mary, but with her on the east coast, she is probably zzzzzzzzzzzz by now. I think you are right about all the colors running together and creating something new.

Margie

[Ausimax]

Gerlinde, I tend to think the background colours would be original - it is unlikely you could suffer such such a dramatic colour-shift of the background without effecting the colour of the girls arm/leg or clothing.

I would be inclined to sample the background by the child's right foot and then behind her head - and run a gradient fill on a new layer - place it below your working layer then add a  mask and with a low opacity brush paint out the original background until you have an acceptable blend.

Max

[Mhayes]

Tess,

I did a quick and dirty by doing an auto Curves Adjustment and I also tried doing a Levels adjustment to see what I got from color correcting. Both times, I got close to the same results as Gerlinde. I also did a color correction by finding neutral gray only, which I used a spot over her eye (your right) and I came out with about the same, except not as bright and her dress was a darker blue. I know we are using two different softwares, but yours seems to be going towards the green and blue side and I wonder why we are so far apart?

Margie

[GP]

Hi guys,

thanks for your help on this. Max, I will try your suggestion and see how it looks. Margie, I am not sure what you mean, when you say mine goes towards blue and green. Or did you mean Tassie's? Her's looks very green on my monitor. But then I am using my note book at the moment and the monitor is not calibrated. I worked on it at my desktop computer with the calibrated monitor, but saved a copy for web. The web colors are always slitely different.

[Mhayes]

Gerlinde, I think yours looks like mine, but to add to the confusion on that last post of mine, I addressed it to Tess. Sorry about that. Didn't mean to make you go crazy too!  :D

Margie

[GP]

Nice try, Margie! :funny:

[mschonher]

Good Morning Gerlinde,  I did get a buzz from Margie so here I am checking out your beautiful photo.  I've dragged it to my desktop and will have a good close look at it.  I'll get back to you shortly.

Mary   :hug:

[mschonher]

Hi Gerilinde,  sorry it has taken me so long to get back to you on this one, it's just been a crazy day. But I'm always so pleased when someone is taking the time to restore the background on a studio photo as lovingly as the main subject.  Good for you!

OK, what I did was work the background using the original photo, but before I began I did a hue/sat>yellow>-30 to neutralize the colors.
Using the colors from the background I took the clone stamp tool, you could also use the healing brush set to replace, and copied the not too garish colors around the background.  When I was happy with the way it looked I began to blend the colors using the Healing Brush tool set to normal until it looked good to my eye.  I then placed the restored baby onto the restored background and it looked a little dull to me so using the Nagel Series 42 brushes #841 and #870 and the StarryDust brush #400 (each on it's own layer) I picked the light blue colors from her dress and painted here and there on the background.  I had to each layer a Gausian Blur until it was soft.  After the background looks good I went around the perimeter of the baby with the lasso tool set to 6 pixels and little by little replaced the areas that had some leftover damage from the original.  This technique keeps the edges soft and beautiful.

Hope this helps..............Mary   :hug:

I sure hope this helps

[GP]

wow Mary, that looks great!  :up:

Thanks a ton for your hard work on that, I hope I will be able to replicate it somehow. I really hate to replace the background, especially on an older portrait like this. When ever possible, I try to work with what is there.

This for sure helps!

Gerlinde  :loveit: