What was I thinking????

[Deborahjc]

I enjoyed the last photo from this party but this photo is really tough (for me anyway). 

Any advice on how to tackle the different colored smears is gratefully appreciated.   :wnw:




Work done so far (still some red noise in the background). 

[glennab]

Yeah, Deborah

I can see that you already have the OPR syndrome.  What the heck WERE you thinking!  Silly woman.

I haven't dealt with one that has quite this much dark blobbiness (if there be such a word).  I think I'd make a feathered selection around the worst area where the blue and black muck is and use an adjustment layer with selective color to tone down the worst of the mess.  Then the only way I'd know to tackle the rest is clone and patch.  I haven't found a way to globally clean up the smears and smudges.  If anyone does have a method, I'd love to know it.

Your skin tones look good, so I don't think any other color correction is necessary.  It might be worth checking your channels in CMYK, and if any are especially groady, copy and replace them with another channel or try some channel mixing.

Big help, I know, but this would be one I'd experiment on for several hours before I even started the restoration work.

Have fun!

GK

[klassylady25]

Can't say we're not a bunch of masochists!  Candy

[Mhayes]

Hi Deborah,

You have your work cut out for you on this one! Just for a comparison, make a copy of the original before you made any changes and try this for color correcting. Duplicate your background copy and then choose Curves Adjustment at the bottom of the layer's palette. When the Curves window comes up, pick the eye dropper in the middle, which is for the gray point and click in a neutral gray area such as the woman with gray hair seated with the blue dress. GK has listed a good tutorial on adjusting the gray balance, but in this case we have an easy pick for the gray. Do not use either the black or white eye dropper, because they are no help in this case. Your photo will look a little dull, but that is something that you can tweak later. I think you will find that this will help you get rid of the violet and blue colors that are in places you do not want.

This photo is going to take some time and no quick fixes. On clothing I like to use the lasso with a feather of 2 px to select areas that are good and then put them on their own later. I will then move that selection into the bad area and use the transformation to rotate or any other adjustments needed. Sometimes to make it easier, I will then merge down. I will look at my work at 100% or greater and will then use the patch tool to smooth over areas where my restoring is not seamless. Clothing can be a real pain, because you want to keep the direction of the fabric consistent.

Don't forget to take a break before you go nutty like the rest of us!  ;D

Margie

[Deborahjc]

Glenna, Margie, Tess and Candy

Thanks so much for the encouragement and the advice. 

I have tried working with channels (Green channel and lightness channels are best) and tried to replace the bad channels with these but in most cases no noticeable effect and in some cases it dramatically changed the color (even in the luminosity blend mode).  I have not had a lot of experience in channels so I went back through the tutorials and books.  Still not sure I got it right but I am experimenting!
I tried Margie's advice on adjusting for the grey point and it did improve the picture (warmed up the background) but didn't appear to have much of an effect on the smears. 

I think I will go back to the brute force method of adjustment layers and cloning.  (Sounds like a bad sci-fi movie.   ;)

I may post this one again for help along the way!

Thanks!! 

:crazy: