Nice couple

Jonas.Wendorf · October 13, 2010, 09:28:45 AM

Hey there,

I just finished my latest restore and wanted to show you:

Before:

After:

Originally I had recored my screen while working in order to present you a video walk-through, but after I stopped recording, my software just stopped and the video came out not working at all.
Maybe I'll give it another try on my next one.

But of course I wanted to give you an outline of what I did anyways :-).

I started of by color correcting the image with a new curves adj. layer in "Color" mode. I used the gray color sampler tool and clicked on the man's jacket which I assumed to be neutral.
Next I split the frequencies as explained in this tutorial here: http://www.operationphotorescue.org/forum/index.php/topic,2687.0.html and painted on a new layer in between the LOW and the HIGH to get rid of all the low frequency defects.
Next I used the healing brush (sample: "Current layer") on the HIGH to get rid of the remaining high frequency damage.
I then copied the feet from the woman on the right, because the left woman's were missing.
Some color correction with curves was needed to make them fit.
Next I used my supporting layers (http://www.operationphotorescue.org/forum/index.php/topic,2822.0.html) to fix the remaining defects and a new hue/saturation adj. layer to desaturate the black dresses.

Hannie · October 13, 2010, 10:23:29 AM

Hi Jonas,

I love your footwork! It is great to see you post your workflow and methods, great info.
Hope the video on your next restore will work!

Perhaps the jacket of the man was not neutral enough, I tried to use the gray part of the wedding veil for the neutral (after a basic levels correction in RGB). This seems to give less of a color cast and more contrast. (also warmer (yellowish) color which is probably OK for a wedding photo :-)

Hannie

Jonas.Wendorf · October 13, 2010, 12:37:06 PM

Hannie, what a great change :-)!

I redid the color as you said and it looks way better now:

Edit: I also upped the saturation just a tad.

lurch · October 13, 2010, 07:43:04 PM

Hi Jonas,

Nice job, but if you're aiming for near perfection there are a couple of things not addressed yet. First is color balance - on my calibrated monitor there is an orange cast in the bride's dress. The points I used in an attempt to get the whole dress neutral are shown in the markup. Once I corrected the cast (on a copy of your latest version), some yellowish stains (also marked) showed up more markedly.

This

shows the before correction and after correction RGB values. YMMV.

Mhayes · October 14, 2010, 01:54:09 AM

Hi Jonas,

I agree with Lurch on the color cast. One thing you shouldn't do is guess where neutral gray is, because you can get fooled. Take your original before any color correction and do one of two things. If you are using Photoshop CS5, go up to the Edit menu and in Edit>Fill>Use>pick 50% gray. Then on your Layers Menu, change the mode to Difference. Look for areas that are almost black and you will see it is not the groom's jacket or the bride's veil. If you are not on CS 5, you can go up to New Layer: Color=Overlay and then check the box for 50% gray. Also, this one will correct pretty good by hitting auto on the Curves Adjustment layer. If you really wanted to pinpoint Dave's Cross technique down, you could use threshold to find what part turns black first. Once you have marked you points, trash the difference layer.

Hannie's looks pretty close, especially the skin tones.

Margie

Jonas.Wendorf · October 14, 2010, 10:20:13 AM

Thank you both Lurch and Margie :-).

Lurch, once you mentioned it, I noticed the orange parts as well. They're now fixed :-).

Margie, I used your method now, but the tones didn't shift all that much.

Anyways, here's the new (hopefully color correct) version :-):

Hannie · October 14, 2010, 10:38:42 AM

Hi Jonas,

It looks much better. To tone down the red in the skin color slightly why don't you try a selective color adjustment layer, go to the reds and move the cyan slider way over to the right. (moving the magenta to the left gives an unnatural result)
Also the grayish spot on the dress towards the bottom left could be brightened a bit?

:up2:

Hannie

Jonas.Wendorf · October 14, 2010, 02:30:27 PM

The spot is brightened and the skin has more cyan now :-)

Edit: Sorry, I didn't notice you meant way over to the right. In this case, are you using relative or absolute? Because relative gives pretty good results, absolute makes the skin look green ;-).
Anyways I used absolute (I almost always do) and pushed the slider to about 20 to get results like pushing it in relative to 100.

lurch · October 14, 2010, 04:23:38 PM

Nice! How did you get all the shadows on the bride's dress neutral? Still one area of splotchy luminosity . . .

Johnboy · October 14, 2010, 10:19:36 PM

Hi Jonas,

This one is coming along nicely. While you are making the corrections suggested by Lurch, take a look at the color damage on the table cloth in the background. There is damage in this area on the original and it may need some attention.

Johnboy

Jonas.Wendorf · October 15, 2010, 11:04:30 AM

Lurch, thank you :-)
I fixed the areas you marked with dodge & burn.

To get the dress neutral I cheated :-[. Because there was no way to be sure, that I was really checking the dress and not some damage, I used a new layer in "Color" mode, took white and painted over the whole thing to get it neutral.
For the same reason, I'm curious, what Johnboy sees, because the table cloth's color was painted in as well?

Edit: Seems like I've got everybody happy by now :-)? That means upload to me!

Johnboy · October 17, 2010, 06:32:13 PM

Jonas,

Sorry to take so long to respond to your question. On my screen I see some reddish streaks on the table cloth. Maybe it is just my screen. I don't see any thing near the table where the table cloth would pick up a colored reflection. I have circled the areas where I see the colored blemish. It may be nothing but it popped out to me right away.

Johnboy