With Dear Old Dad

[dle]

This one is an interesting problem because so much of it has been utterly destroyed. If I didn't have a reference photo I'd be sunk completely. Even so, I've had to "invent" more stuff than I'd like to make it look at all reasonable.

Here's the original:



Here's the reference:



And here's the (first) WIP:



What do you think? I've tried to restore it, not enhance it, but, clearly, there's a good deal of interpretation required here to have anything close to what was there before Sandy got it..

[schen]

Good start.  The borrowed stuffs look believable.

I think her right hand fingers were all bent.

I would also suggest that you lighten her face, her veils,  his face and darken his suite.  It was a flash photo so I expect the contrast of the suite would be low.  His borrowed suite look too much light from the left.

[dle]

Thanks, Shujen, for the suggestions -- good ones, all. I'll work on it and post the results of the next steps.

As for her fingers, I agree, they were probably all under her palm in the original. I tried to do them that way at one point, but didn't like how they came out. (It looked like she'd had an unfortunate agricultural accident or something equally unpleasant.) So, after struggling for a while, I imported her hand from the reference photo. But, still, you're correct. Her fingers should be curled under her palm. Let me see what I can do.

[dle]

Here's the latest iteration of this young woman and her dad. I'm still not 100% okay with her right hand. Maybe I should photograph a hand in the appropriate position and see how that works?



Thanks for the feedback. I think it's getting closer.

[Pat]

Dave,

What if her fingers gave the appearance of curling up and under a bit more as well as being a little less uniform in length?  Not sure if this will be much help but just to give an idea of the configuration I'm suggesting I made a layer via copy of her hands from the reference photo in your post and warped the fingers of her right hand:



Pat

[dle]

Thanks, Pat, that's exactly what I'm aiming for. Aiming, but not hitting, I'm afraid.

Let me see if I can create something close by warping. I need to figure this out.

[dle]

With Pat's pointer, I decided to spend some time improving my skills at warping, free transforming, liquifying, puppet warping, and related methods of twisting pixels. While not yet proficient (in particular not quick) practice does help. Here's how far I've pushed it.



I'd be pretty much okay with this except that I've recently found out that there's another reference photo, this one showing dear old Dad's suit -- a tux with black ribbons down the side seams of the trousers. If I didn't redo that part of the picture, he wouldn't match the other pictures in the collection. Sigh.

[Bambi]

You're doing a great job on this, David. I love Puppet Warp! Sorry to mess you up by finding that tux....  :)

Bambi

[Closecrop]

I feel your pain dle. Nothing like doing a GREAT job only to find out it's the wrong job. At any rate, the texture on the borrowed suit is fantastic and believable.
Good luck with with the new info. It will be interesting to see the changed outcome.

[dle]

Thanks for the kind words.

Yes, it's frustrating to go off down the wrong path, but that happens sometimes and there's usually a lesson to be learned when it does. In this case, I think, it points to a flaw in our overall process. When you're working on a photo that's one of a collection of similar photos, there is often material in the other photos that can make the work easier, more accurate, and more consistent with the rest of the collection. That's why distributors sometimes provide a reference photo -- that's how it worked with dear old Dad here, and I couldn't have made much progress without it.

But our process doesn't let people doing a restoration look over the complete collection to choose additional material as the need arises. Yes, you can go back to the gallery of unclaimed photos to see if there's something there that might be helpful, and, if you find something, distributors are always good about granting access. But since the photos disappear from the gallery as they are given out for restoration, restorers generally don't get to study the whole collection for reference material, and answering requests for additional reference material is more work for the distributors.

So, I suspect there's a change to how things work in this area that could make life easier for everyone and improve the quality of the restorations we do. Putting the originals for the whole collection somewhere that the restorers of the individual photos can access for reference material would do the trick, for example. And I'm sure there are other ways that could work as well or better.

Just a thought.

In the meantime, it's back to the suit. (Which I'm actually glad to know about since I wouldn't want the photo to not fit with the rest of the collection or need a lot of work by QC.)

[Mhayes]

Dave, I know you must be frustrated, but this photo is really coming along beautifully and the tips coming you way are great!

Margie

[kiska]

This IS a tough one. It seems to me the bride's head looks a little out of proportion to her body? Here's a very preliminary outline that might/might not be helpful.

[Pat]

Dave now is definitely not the time to get frustrated.  I know, easy for me to say.  As Margie said it's really looking beautiful!
 
One tip I have found very helpful is to always keep a copy of the original at the top of your layer stack.  You can turn the visibility of that layer on and off from time to time to confirm you are not straying from original which is so easy to do.  When the visibility of the top layer is on you can also reduce the opacity making it transparent enough to see through and confirm if you have somehow gotten off track regarding size, shape, placement of various objects.  You may want to adjust the slope of the fathers shoulder coming toward you just a bit.

You are doing wonderful job and thanks so very much for posting to the forum.  This is what makes our forum such a fantastic learn environment and enables us to return to the families truly quality restorations.

Pat

[dle]

Thanks, Pat, for the hint about putting a copy of the original on top. I've been checking back and forth between the original and the restoration in a slightly different way, but yours is better because you can also turn it on and lower the opacity so you can see it while "bending" some element (like his shoulder) underneath. I'll use it!

Margie, the point I'd like to focus on from my post about discovering the reference photo showing the father's tux isn't the rework that I'm now doing so much as it is the idea that OPR might consider tweaking how restorers gain access to reference material. It seems to me that making a change in this area could help improve restorations that are a part of a collection and reduce the amount of work required.

Krista, I see what you mean about her head. But checking back and forth between the restoration and the original shows that's one area I haven't changed! I'm a little reluctant to make that kind of alteration during a restoration. Does that sound right to you?

Thanks, everybody, for listening.

[Mhayes]

Dave, we try to have some photos that come with a reference photo, but that is more often when another photo has too much of the face missing. It really boils down to the volunteer asking the distributor if there are any photos that can be used for a reference photo. Often times when photos are first put out, you can get a good idea. The distributor is dealing with lots of requests, photos coming back to critique, and the list goes on. On top of that most of them have other jobs and they spend a lot of time as it is. Short of a contact sheet with all the family's photos, I see no easy way to make available all the photos that are there. Lots of times none of the photos could be used for reference. For now, my advice is that you will have to be proactive and ask.

Thanks,

Margie