Capriccio's Difficult Workshop - Updated 7/16/06

[capriccio]

Posting a work in progress. What I need is feedback on the arm and blanket. I had to draw them from scratch, pretty much.  Is it going in the right direction as far as looking photorealistic? I plan to add noise and do a soft focus blur on the outer edges when the arm is done, so if it looks a little cut & paste now, that will be fixed. Does the coloring and lighting look "right"?

I know it's hard to tell from the before, even at 800px wide, but there were very faint outlines for the fingers and elbow area, so I *think* I got those alright.





Oh, and by the way, all those cute little freckles aren't freckles, LOL. I was actually relieved to discover they were water damage. Easier to fix them all to smooth than worry about making a separate mask or layer just for the freckles!

[Veronica]

What a beautiful image!  You did great. :up:

[chazcron]

The coloring and lighting look right, the anatomy does not. Perhaps really blurring it back would disguise it.  I'd suggest making that excellently retouched blanket extend to casually drape over the fingers in question.

Excellent progress so far, capriccio.

[capriccio]

The coloring and lighting look right, the anatomy does not. Perhaps really blurring it back would disguise it.  I'd suggest making that excellently retouched blanket extend to casually drape over the fingers in question.

Excellent progress so far, capriccio.

Thanks for the feedback! What about it isn't jibing for you? I was concerned that the fingers looked a little too plump or the whole hand was a bit too big. Do you think it could be salvaged by further tweaking?

Thanks for the comment on the blanket - that was just about 100% scratch work, there! Not a thing left to clone or copy.

[capriccio]

Here's the nearly finalized product. Just want to get more opinions before I upload it at Photoshelter. Thanks!

[Ptollemy]

Hi. Overall, great job! :)   I'm just a novice at all this but my feedback would be to add a small "dip" where the wrist is narrows from the hand.

Hope this helps,
kind regards
Ptollemy

[Mark Wilson]

Cappricio, you've done a lovely job on this. The blanket is fantastic. The wrist does look a bit 'lumpy', even though the shape is carried over from the original.

The only, really small, thing I would say about the fingers is that you might adjust the colours to be closer to the skin colours in the elbow area. The girl is very pale skinned, but the hand, even if if is in a bit of shadow shouldn't be that dark.

Overall though, great work.

-Mark.

[idyllopus]

You've done an exquisite job on the faces of these two children.

[Dave]

It's a miraculous restoration, but I have to agree with Chazcron that the anatomy of the arm is off. Besides the color of the fingers and the lump along the wrist, the overall length of the girl's arm seems distorted. I think the idea of disguising it with the blanket is the better option than trying to redraw it (my opinion ... doesn't really amount to much ... just ask my wife).

Other than that, I'm glad that you're here. You belong.

[Dave]

I had a total of 4 cents to add ... you may want to even consider cropping up to just below the baby's fingers. That will remove much of the damage along the girl's arm and still maintain the integrity of the image.

[capriccio]

Thanks everyone! You know how you look at an image for so long, you can't see what's weird about it? I see the dstortion, but couldn't reconcile how it appears in the original with reality. So I did a combination of the suggestions. I cropped about 1/4 way down the arm, and covered the hand with the blanket. I hope it looks passable. I actually prefer the compostion of the new crop - it puts the girl's face dead center in the picture.

[nate]

That looks great, the crop works very well. I was just about to post that I found finger definitions in the blue channel. I posted a gif below to quickly show.

[capriccio]

That looks great, the crop works very well. I was just about to post that I found finger definitions in the blue channel. I posted a gif below to quickly show.

Thanks for finding that. It's the same placement I saw. But when I placed the hand in that position, the forearm was strangely elongated. Unless I had the bend of the elbow in the wrong place? Oh well. now that it's cropped (and uploaded at Photoshelter :) ) I think I do prefer the cropped version. It puts more focus on the faces and not the awkwardness of the rebuilt hand.

[John]

I agree, with the hand cropped out, the most important part of the photo gets all of the attention.   :up:

[Ptollemy]

Wow, excellent job, well done!  :up: