Flesh Eating Bacteria by the Lake

[jaytrumpet]

Bad case of it, really went after their faces. Unfortunately I am not a doctor, I just dabble in cosmetic surgery with Photoshop. Let this be a lesson to you DON'T GO IN THE WATER!

[Mhayes]

Jay, thanks for the warning.  ;)  I got news for you and feel bad that you didn't take care of this sooner. The family for this photo came back later and went to the university where Ted Wrench was taking stragglers from the Hummelstown copy run. What I didn't realize at the time was that these added photos had references for each of the kids. I did not upload the photo right away as I didn't have a permission slip sign to put them out----I didn't know that these were add ons and not new additions.

I will get that to you and also upload the rest of the family's photos to Bambi's gallery. In the meantime I am going to send you an email on your last upload

I have to get caught up with some things and will take care of this as soon as possible.

Margie

[jaytrumpet]

Margie,

I assume "references for each of the kids" means additional photos that I can use to restore this one? I am not up on the OPR lingo yet.

In the mean time I fixed a couple of spots, got rid of a swath of purple discoloration in the lower left and I opened up the shadows a bit.

[Mhayes]

Jay,

No,  reference means that we take a written deposition from the family members describing facial features and coloring of the photo. We later put that in a Word Doc to help with the photo in question. The results are usually stunning. OK, I'm fabricating.  >:D A reference photo is usually one that the family is able to bring in that will help with another photo and not one that needs fixing. Sometimes a reference is just another photo in the gallery that will help also.

I think the easiest thing would be for me to email you the reference photo rather than uploading to PhotoShelter.

Margie

[jaytrumpet]

Margie,

I fooled around with one of the "reference" photos that you supplied. I spent a long time trying to clean up the black and white (looked like a Xerox!), colorized it and then brought it into the lake image. I think the result is pretty bad. Pretty cartoonish. It's so small it's hard to see though. I question if I should explore this further or just go with the blurred out faces that I have.

[jaytrumpet]

Added another face Lower left  from the reference material. I definitely think I am barking up the wrong tree.

[Mhayes]

Jay, I think you did a great job, especially considering how little help the B/W scans were.  Maybe it is just me, but do you think the little girl's head could be transformed to scale her head smaller?

"I definitely think I am bark up the wrong tree."

Think water---canoeing upstream, minus a paddle?  8) 

This looks very good!

Margie

[jaytrumpet]

OK, here goes.

[Mhayes]

 :up:

Margie

[Marydh]

Hi,
Just a crazy idea...as you can see in the original, the little girl has a red cap on just like her brother.  Could you use that on the b/w?  Also, maybe add flesh color and downsize her head a little more.   The boy in the back (in my humble opinion) looks better in your first fix, Jay.  You may have been on your way to fix it but the big white blob in the middle looks like damage to me.
I did a quick try to see the difference.
Jay, are you yelling at me all the way from CT?
Mary :-*

[Bambi]

Great advice, Mary.

Jay, I sent you another picture of the family to use as reference. They are all several years younger, but it might help.

[jaytrumpet]

Thanks for all your help and support, though at this point I have about had it with this image. I feel like I'm spinning my wheels. Please check out the latest, I tried to take a stab at all your suggestions and I used some of the new reference images made available to me.

Jay

[bjtx]

----- at this point I have about had it with this image. I feel like I'm spinning my wheels.

Jay, fwiw ---  sometimes I feel the same way, especially when I'm working on a small (4x6 or smaller) image.  

I often wonder how much detail (derived from editing  effort) is discernible on the final, printed small image  ---  as compared with the much enlarged image I see on my 24" monitor.

:)

[Pat]

Very nice Jay.

Betty it sounds like maybe you could benefit from calibrating your print size command which will help in determining the detail that will be discernible in the final printed image.
 
Note your monitor's current resolution setting (example 1280 x 854 pixels).  Next with an actual real world ruler measure the width of your monitor's image area (do not include the frame) in inches.  Divide the horizontal pixel dimension by the real world dimension of your monitor (example a monitor set to 1680 pixels across with a physical width of 17 inches, 1680/17=98.8 pixels per inch.)  Finally open the preferences dialog, click Units and Rulers, and enter your pixels per inch value into the Screen Resolution field.  Now when you choose View > Print Size, Photoshop can take into account both your screen resolution and the resolution of the image in the Image > Size dialog, and correctly display the printed size of the image.

Pat

[Hannie]

Pat, thanks for the great tip!

Hannie