Help on restore

[CariLeigh]

I am having quite the hard time with this photo. I am afraid I may have gotten in over my head. It looked a lot easier than it really is.


This is what I have so far.



First off the background is black really to begin with, also, I can't tell where her hair ends, I have tried levels, curves and various lightening techniques and cant tell he hair from the background. Lastly, his jacket, I am just lost. What can I do?

I am a beginner and I thought this one would be ok, but apparently I am having issues. I really do want to learn how to fix pictures anyway so any help, tips and advice is appreciated!

[Johnboy]

CariLiegh,

It looks to me that you have a biggggg spotting job. I downloaded your image and then copied the original to a new file and did a new Levels adjustment. Personally I like my color a little better. You seem to have the skin tones blown out on yours so you may want to rethink your color correction. I would suggest going for good skin tone and let the rest of the photo fall where it may. Looks like some florescent lights in the background that are not that important. From there add a couple new layers. One for Stamping and one for Healing. I would suggest that you do the clone stamping first. Then create a new work in progress layer, and then do some healing brush work on it to even out some of the work. You may need to do some Patch tool work also.

As you see I did some quick stamping and healing on the man's shoulder which looks to be solving the problem. Also did some healing on the woman's blue sweater. Be sure that the healing and stamping layers are above you color correction.

I would suggest suggest that you post the images separately then we can see your progress easier. Some of use have old eyes.

Good luck.

Johnboy

Here is the photo I forgot to add last night. Just like forgetting to add the attachment to an e-mail only mine took a long time to make it.

[glennab]

Hi Cari

Don't get discouraged!  We all say the same thing once we've chosen a restoration: "It's worse than it looked in the gallery."  In the interest of time, I won't go into the devious devilment our distribution coordinators pull to make this happen.  Just don't feel alone!

You have a very tedious job here, but at least you have the people's faces and clothing fairly intact.  It's a dark photo to begin with, so you can only do so much to get background detail.  When I used curves to color correct your original, I used the highlight in the corner of the lady's glasses, and the dark areas had a little more detail than yours does.  However, you have beautiful color on the man's face, so you might have to color correct for several different areas and do some masking.  Your most tedious task is going to be to clone, patch or heal (whichever works best for you) all the little bits of debris from the image.  Don't let that scare you.  It's the manner of many of these stinkers, and it's a matter of taking the time to get rid of all of them.  There's no quick way, which is what I think is a bit intimidating to our newbies.  You want to get it done quickly, but it needs to be gone over inch by inch to be sure all the debris is gone. It is definitely difficult to see some of the demarcation of the lady's hair.  You can't do much about that.  Just clean what you can, try not to cover over any detail you do find, and I think you'll have it conquered.

Keep posting if you have problems, and one of us will cheer you on and help where we can.  I think a good way to realize how much you'll be able to do is to look at our gallery.  Many of the restorations were done by people with little initial experience (including me!), and we help each other through the toughies, post tutorials, cheerlead and manage to pull them off.  So will you!

Good luck!

GK

JB got in before me, but I pretty much concur with what he said.  I decided to post my color correction, to which I did nothing else, but I think it'll let you see that the background is a little clearer.  JB, where's your image?  I'm interested in seeing what you got with levels compared to my curves.

[Mhayes]

Hi CariLeigh

You picked a really difficult for your 1st restore and by now everyone will want to warn you not to trust what looks easy in the gallery. Some will even go so far to warn you that we do a bait and switch.  >:D

The real warning sign that this will be a really tricky one to color correct is seeing all of the florescent lights in the background. I have a feeling that this photo had a greenish cast when it was new and the camera's white balance got fooled by the florescent lights. Because of that I disagree with Johnboy when he said:

I would suggest going for good skin tone and let the rest of the photo fall where it may. Looks like some florescent lights in the background that are not that important.

I'm not sure how Johnboy's version came out with Levels since he forgot to post. GK went with Curves and after trying different solutions: I decided to color correct in Lab. Don't panic as there are many ways to go about restoring. The reason I did not want to correct in either a Levels or Curves in RGB was that I felt the colors would be all over the place. That is why you were able to have parts of your photo looking good and then had troubles with the rest. I also think it pays to try to balance all of the photo rather than just "going for good skin tone and letting the rest of the photo fall where it may."

I changed my color mode to Lab and then duplicated my layer and then clicked on the Channels. Lab has the top layer that shows color, the lightness channel, and the a channel (red/blue), and the b channel (yellow/green). I clicked on the Lightness channel which will give you an image in black/white (luminosity) and them went up to Image Adjustments>Shadow Highlights. I brought the shadow slider to the left to the point that I like the tone better. Then I went back and used the short cut key to do a Curves Adjustment in Lab (Ctrl M) . Below is what I did.







After doing that, I flatten and changed the mode back to RGB.



Even then, this version leaves a lot to be desired (not counting all the spots remaining), because it is rather anemic looking and leaning to the cool side. The one thing I forgot is what looks like a spinal cord on your far right; I use a gradient mask to conceal it as I found it very distracting. I believe it is showing the photos being printing and dropping down the chute.

Like GK said, don't get discouraged and you should give yourself a big pat on the back for trying this one. Also, there are different ways to approach each photo. The people are the most important part in this photo and if you can tone down the green, you will headed in the right direction. Good luck and keep us posted.

Margie

[Hannie]

Hi Cari,

Welcome to the forum and congratulations on your first restore!
You have done a great job, the levels look good and the you already got rid of a lot damage as well.
Although it is possible to show more detail of the background (great tip Margie!) I think your version looks fine.  slightly less red and cyan in an sat/hue adjustment layer is an option, it will cut down the bright green ceiling in the background some.

I think you have done a beautiful job,

Hannie

[Johnboy]

I added my image to my earlier post. I previewed my comments and even made changes. Then I posted. Didn't even dawn on me that I left the image off until I was in bed about to go to sleep. Check out my post above for the image.

Johnboy

[CariLeigh]

Thank you all so much for your tips and encouragement. I don't feel quite as overwhelmed as I was. I think I was expecting myself to be able to fix it to the point where it would look new or something. :)

I will let you all know if I have any other questions and let you know how the progress is going!