Help with shadows

[khawley]

Hi Everyone, I am new to the operation.  I have been working on this picture and I am pretty happy with most of it.  I am struggling a bit with getting the facial shadows to look correct.  Would love some feedback.

Thanks
Kris

Original -








thanks!

[G3User]

Good one to start with Kris.

A bit of dodging and the healing brush should help. Sometimes having the original and repair open side by side makes it easier to see what needs to be done.

Only comment is that the bottom of her nose looks to be narrower than the original

Athol

[kiska]

It doesn't appear that you've done any levels or curves adjustments?
Needs more adjustment to get skin tone correct. This is a start.

[dyocum555]

From an artistic standpoint I don't think the image was meant to be bright.  It looks to me like it was meant to be a dark sepia or brown tone showing the young lady but doing it in a muted way.

So if you do a levels or curves adjustment on it, keep it toned down and don't blow the image out.

David

[Mhayes]

I agree with David on being muted, but it does need a color correction which I did with an "Auto" Curves Adjustment Layer to counteract what damage and age has done to the phone. I agree on not blowing the highlights out. The rest will be a case of cleaning up the damage and do not remove the shadow under her nose as that reflects how the lighting was set up when the photograph was taken. This is really a beautiful photo!

Margie

Footnote: Here is a link that will show you the "Butterfly Portrait Lightning" effect:
http://www.professionalphotography101.com/portrait_lighting/lighting_names.html

[Mhayes]

Kris,

I'd like to say this was a "Quick & Dirty," (it wasn't) but here is what mine looks like with more nose on her. I'm not sure her ear would be showing on the other side and my version still needs a lot more clean up, but I wanted to show her with a fuller nose. I think you are on the right direction.



I suppose women do not have 5 O clock shadows, so the face could use some toning down.

Margie

[khawley]

Hi Margie, the 5 O'clock shadow look is part of what I was struggling with.  There is clearly some shadow on her face in the original but I have been trying to find a balance that matches the original without looking like beard shadow.  The overall tone of the picture I interpreted as more of a sepia which is why I didn't do much color adjusting,  I will adjust a bit once I have the shadow finished.  The nose was a challenge because there was so much damage over the pic.  I am using CS4, does the content sensitive patching with CS6 help to compensate for such things?  I am hoping to upgrade in the next week or so to CS6. 

Thanks
Kris

[Mhayes]

Hi Kris, part of the shadow is because of the studio lightening. Sometimes if I find a shadow too dark I may make a duplicate layer and change the mode to screen and then bring the opacity down to where it looks right. I am currently on CS5 and feel comfortable with it that I haven't upgraded. I'm not sure about the sensitive patching and what revision that was available. The patch tool comes in handy to smooth transitions on the skin. I do know that the clone stamp was improved on CS5. I probably did more lassoing of good good areas and working them in. This was especially true on the nose and it felt like doing a charcoal drawing. Some areas where I lassoed and put on a separate layer; I would do a transform where I flipped it horizontal and then would rotate to fit. Layer masks were a great help, because I could chose what I wanted to show.

The color correction with Curves helped to brighten and I didn't do an extra brighten. I will confess that I did go back on Curves and do a mild S-Curve, because I thought it needed to be a little darker. I have yet to see any of our photos that don't need a color adjustment, but one size does not always fit all and you have to see what gives the best results. The one exception will be photos that are hand painted and then it is more of a judgement call.

Margie

[Bambi]

Thanks for posting the portrait lighting link, Margie. I bookmarked it.

Bambi

[jesterjeni]

I toyed with this using the patch and dodge and burn I tried to keep the colors that were already there... I overlay ed  my result with the original until i got something that looked right to me- lasso-ing and creating new layers with existing colors, i also borrowed the down and dirty example and used it for luminosity...the neck still seems a bit off to me, but maybe this can help



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[Candice]

It's always fascinating seeing the work that everyone does! 

[seekingoz]

Here's the original repair:



Here are a couple of techniques that might help smooth out the blotches:

First, I duplicate the background. I use this as my blur layer. A lot of detail problems can be helped or fixed by blurring parts of the image...sometimes down to the individual pixel level. I use the blur tool for this and not a blur filter.

I blurred the whole forehead but only the left side of the rest of the photo so you can see some of the differences.  I also softened the highlight on the nose on the left side of the image by using a clone tool at a low opacity on the blur layer to pick up the color from just above the highlight. I checked the curve layer (coming up next) often to make sure I was getting only the pixels I wanted to change. I've left a bit of the original highlight on the right side so you can see the difference.


BLUR LAYER

To find those individual pixels I add a curves layer that I learned from Athol during our first non-restore challenge.  I've saved it as a preset that I call "zig-zag". I'm using it more and more. I think this link http://www.operationphotorescue.org/forum/index.php/topic,4047.30.html should get you to that page (it's just below half-way on the page). I keep this layer at the top and turn it off and on as I need it. I hope you can see how the blur stands out when this layer is turned on. (Thanks Athol!)


ZIG-ZAG CURVE LAYER

I add a dodge and burn layer just above the blur layer. I find this kind of layer helps keep details and shadows sharp without looking too painted in. If I have to do a lot of both dodging and burning, I'll make two separate layers. Here's how to do it:

- Create a new layer and fill it with 50% gray. Change the mode to either overlay or soft light.
- For burn:  set your foreground color to black, paint brush mode to multiply, and lower the opacity to 20% or lower.
- For dodge:  set your foreground color to white, paint brush mode to screen, and lower the opacity to 5% or lower.
- I will also use the blur tool on this layer to soften shadows and highlights.


BURN LAYER

The blur layer, in this case, works as my final image.

Remember to check your work often by turning the curves layer off and on and zooming in and out frequently. It's very easy to create a lot of brush strokes in a very short time, so many you might not be able to find them in history to change them if you need to. I also save frequently, too, so if I do go too far I won't have to start over.

I hope this makes sense. Have fun!  8)

Judy

[G3User]

 :up:

Athol

[Pat]

Excellent tutorial Judy  :loveit:

Pat

[Tori803]

I've found Athol's technique with the zig zag Curves adjustment useful too if finding damage. Especially white on white damage.

Thank you for the tutorial!