Kiddos in B&W

Justin J. · September 02, 2012, 12:08:08 AM

This one was fun to work on. The picture was taped a little crooked so I had to cut the picture, move and rotate the top part, then fill in the blanks and remove the tape.

I am not sure if I should clean up the background a little more or if it is okay as is.

Any suggestions or opinions would be welcomed.

Thanks,
Justin

Mhayes · September 02, 2012, 02:33:09 AM

Justin,

You have done a good job on the repairing and I'm not really too sure what is damage on the background---specifically on your right hand side. Your restore could still use a Levels Adjustment. You will see that on your right hand side the slider could come in which would brighten up the photo. You may also want to even the boys skin out on your right and tweak his hair a little more.

Nice job!

Margie

Mike S. · September 02, 2012, 11:28:27 AM

Justin,

Excellent work on the repairs. Expanding on Margie's comments a little. I notice the boy's forehead on the left is a little dark and the other boy on the right has a shadow on his forehead that I don't see in the original. As Margie said a levels correction will lighten up the shadow on the left boy's forehead but the one on the right somehow got added.

I have taken your correction and added arrows on the shadows on both boys for identification and it looked like to me the light areas in the upper right side of the picture were damage. Also I took the original photo and did a levels correction, added a Black and White Layer and finally a levels correction and the results (other than the uncorrected damage) looked slightly lighter on the left's boys forehead and no shadow on the right boy's forehead with smoother skin results. I present this just as information.

Again excellent work on the repairs.

lurch · September 02, 2012, 03:34:13 PM

Justin, good work on repairing the damage. That patch on your right looks to me not like damage but rather like tree leaves accompanying the tree trunk to its left.

My only pic would be that overall contrast is too high. There will be more detail in the background if it's lowered a tad. Same goes for your last photo (though it's likely too late to do anything about that).

Mike S. · September 02, 2012, 05:43:37 PM

Lurch,

I think you are right about the tree leaves.

Thank you for that,

Mike

Justin J. · September 02, 2012, 08:27:00 PM

Thank you EVERYONE for the comments and suggestions! You truly have no idea how much of a help it is to me.

When I was removing the tape marks from the boy on the left, I think I got a little carried away with the clone stamp and darkened his forehead too much. As for the boy on the right, I don't know what I did other than add shadows that weren't there. One of my faults is that I spend too much time zoomed in looking at pixels rather than stepping back occasionally and looking at the entire picture.

I will take everyone's suggestions and put them towards a better restoration for this picture. Hopefully I can get it worked out and sent home soon.

Thanks a Million!

Justin

Justin J. · September 05, 2012, 11:35:40 AM

How's this? I left some shadow on the forehead on the right. Once the levels were adjusted on the original, it showed the same shadow as on the cheeks. Also, after adjusting the levels, the boy on the right looks a little bright. I realize from the original picture that they have different complexions, but do you think that I should lower the brightness on just his face?

More suggestions would be welcomed.

Thanks,
Justin

Pat · September 05, 2012, 01:04:35 PM

Hi Justin,

I think maybe the skin texture of the faces could be improved a bit with the spot healing and patch tools. I spent very little time working just on the face of the boy on your left:

Pat

Justin J. · September 05, 2012, 01:39:32 PM

Does this look a little better? I didn't want to smooth out the skin too much due to the grainy nature of the surrounding areas. I am always hesitant to overdo it.

I know that i am being a pain about this, and I'm sorry for that. Please let me know if there is anything else that you think needs to be done.

Thanks,
Justin

Pat · September 06, 2012, 10:39:51 AM

That is a little better on his face Justin.

Lurch suggested earlier that the overall contrast in your restore is a bit too high and I am wondering if that is why your photo appears so grainy. When you look at the one I posted with just a levels and b/w adjustment the overall appearance is not as grainy as yours. When I start adding contrast it becomes grainy.

Pat