Good Times with Friends

[dle]

Well, something pretty bad happened to this photo. Maybe after it got wet, its owner decided to just chop off the most badly damaged part. In any case, the orginal:



means I had to imagine what quite a lot of the background might have looked like. In such cases it often works well to assume that what's missing is just more of what's there, and that's what I did here. It could be that in the original the windows end near the top of the photo and there was a portion of the ceiling in it, I just can't tell. In any case, here's how far I got:



I think I'll do a little more on the color balance (it's a little too cyan in the highlights) and even out the tone in a few places, but beyond that I'm running out of ideas.

Thoughts and suggestions are most welcome.

[Mhayes]

Dave,

I have seen this same photo posted on the OPR Forum, but have no idea where. You might ask Bambi if this went out to someone else and they never finished it, because it looked finished when posted. I checked the gallery and this is the only photo and I see no finished photo for it returned. I even checked to see who might have had it before you and check the forum for their post, but no such luck. Right now I am running short on time and not able to go through all the forum post.

Yes, this needs more color correction. I believe the window trim is closer to being white. The other thing that bothers me is the perspective of the window. I know you have to fill in what is missing, but now the people look smaller and the new window looks so tall.

Will do more research over the weekend when I have time.


Margie

[Pat]

There is what looks like a finished restore of this photo in Photoshelter.

Pat

[dle]

Interesting. I guess I should have posted earlier, during the planning stages and before spending a bunch of time on it. Oh, well.

I'll talk to Bambi before working any more on it.

[Bambi]

Hi, David. I agree about the color correction and the window. I think a mirror image of the window frame is about as wide as it would go not across the whole wall. Other than that, it looks good so far.

Pat, the previous version needed a little more work, but the volunteer ran out of time and interest, so I put it back in the gallery. I don't blame them. This one is really challenging.

Bambi

[Candice]

Has to be a 60 or 70s picture.  All that lovely ORANGE.

[dle]

Thanks for the feedback, everyone. And thanks, Bambi, for clearing up the status of this photo.

I had a careful look at the original photo to try to decide whether the windows continue across the wall or not. If you look just to the left of the two bottles on the brick lledge to the left and behind the table you can see that the same sort of framing that surrounds the windows continues beyond the leftmost window we can see. Also, the brickwork continues as it does under the other windows. So, I think there's another window to the left of the two bottles.

But I agree that the windows in the restoration are a bit overwhelming I think the problem is that they're too tall. So I made a header above them (and tweaked the color balance in the highlights).

Here's where I ended up so far.



What do you think? Getting closer to acceptable?

[bjtx]

Dave, It's looking  good.   :up: The added header looks real nice.

[Mhayes]

Dave, much better on a really old photo with plenty of noise. I know you are still working on color correcting the people, so the only other thing that catches my eye is the curtain (?) on the wall beside the fish with the turquoise coloring on the edges. I may be wrong here, but in the original it looks like damage discoloration.

Margie

[dle]

Thanks Margie. I think you're right about the turquoise on the curtain(?). I changed that, evened some tonal gradations out here and there and toned down the radioactive skin tones to get this:



To me it's looking pretty close to go. Thanks so much everyone for the help.

[Mhayes]

Dave, look ready to go. Very nice job!  :up:

Margie

[dle]

Good deal, thanks. Off it goes. Hope its owners enjoy it!