Girl with Sandy Hair

[brian]

Hi Everyone,

I need an opinion on this work in progress.
Original

WIP

   
To let you know, I moved to a trial copy of Photoshop Elements 10 to try the
healing brushes and they are a time saver,
My problem centers on the girl's hair.  Do you think my approach so far on the sweater and background is on the right track?  I feel the damage to the hair is really a challenge.  The healing brushes are limited due to the extent of the damage and I see two hair colors as if the hair is streaked.
I cloned hair down her left shoulder using a fairly clean piece of data.  Above her forehead I lassoed good data and duplicated it.  I don't know if I like the effect,
Should I be cloning at 200% with four to six pixel brushes?  I find the spot healing brush does not work well with the sand and black hair (suspect it is the contrast).  On the parts of the face I have done, I am happy with the results.   
However the healing brushes are not the panacea I expected. 
All suggestions welcomed.

Cheers
Brian

[Bambi]

Hi, Brian:

Thanks for posting on Forum. I've sent you my painstaking spotting method. Let's see if someone has an easier way to do it.

Bambi

[Jonas.Wendorf]

Hi Brian,

I agree with Bambi here, I think your best bet would be to use the spotting method with a small clone brush.
Of course you could also try to repaint/smudge some of the hair, but that requires a lot of skill and I'm unsure whether it'd speed up the restore.

Jonas

[philbach]

Bambi, just curious what is the painstaking spotting method?

[Bambi]

My tips are for Photoshop CS5, but are basic enough to be adapted.


I start with the usual color correction Dave Cross method http://www.operationphotorescue.org/forum/index.php/topic,1304.0.html
Or the technically superior way to select midtones from Jonas, which I can't seem to find. Maybe someone can post the link.

Then I do an overall Dust and Scratches of 1-2, just enough to get rid of the tiniest spots. Do not blur the detail in the image because you'll never get it back. There will still be a lot of little spots, but they'll have a little space between them.

Then it's just one tiny spot at a time at 400-500% on your monitor. (Note: When using tiny Content Aware Healing Brushes in CS5, the black spot stays over the correction until you do the next one. It doesn't disappear like it does with a larger brush. A bug, not a feature!) The regular Healing Brush works well on tiny spots unless it's too near the edge or a contrasting color. For spots on or very near an edge, center the Healing Brush on the line with sampling from both colors and it will reproduce the line between the colors properly without the sunburst effect. For edges, use the Cloning stamp.

When using the Healing Patch Tool, try to drag your selection to a matching place in the picture that was not damaged. Reusing the repaired pixels tends to cause more blurring.

Check each of your repairs carefully. If you can see circles or edges, use the Blur Brush at a very gentle 11-33% to blend without blurring the noise.

No matter how careful you are, you are likely to have texture issues when your repairs are done. Here's a great tutorial from Jonas on Textures.
http://www.operationphotorescue.org/forum/index.php/topic,2687.0.html

Another method is to make a duplicate of your working Layer, move it under the working layer and blur it with Dust and Scratches until most of the spots vanish. Create a layer mask on the top layer and with a tiny brush, paint black over the spots so the blurred layer shows through.

Both are time-consuming and tedious, but broad strokes and sweeping overall changes just don't produce satisfying results.

Bambi

[philbach]

Thanks Bambi.  One thing that I occasionally use for numerous white spots is to copy the layer to a new layer and use darken blending mode.  Then on the copied layer select the move tool and click the up arrow once and the side arrow once.  Sometimes I can get away with that maneuver.

[glennab]

Brian and Bambi, something I just learned in one of the myriad tutorials I watch is that often using  proximity match rather than content aware works better with the spot healing tool.  I've tried it and discovered that it's often the case with skin when there are changes in shading.  I'll use the clone tool at 80% for the most part, 20-30% at transitions in shading, the spot healing tool when I can, and then once I have the skin done, go over any blurred areas with the patch tool to reclaim the texture.

Brian, I'd suggest you try cloning the hair, but use the clone source panel when you have changes in angle.  I had some luck with that on my last restoration when I had any decent hair with which to work.  I ran into trouble when there was nothing to clone, as I haven't learned to create hair, but cloning works if you can change the angle, which is where the clone source comes in very handy.  You also have enough good hair that you might be able to use the smudge tool to blend some of the pieces of each strand together. I've managed to do that on a couple of restorations with some luck.

I almost grabbed this one, but after the hair disaster with my last one, I decided to give myself a break.  Good luck!

GK

Just an afterthought:  I find that on portions of a face with mud, like this little lady, the clone tool is always what I'll go for first.  I can use a small brush, get as close in color to the shading as possible, then clean up with the healing tools.