First Restoration

[BeauW]

So I've been working on my first restoration here and I'm at the point where I think I might be done.

I know one of the objectives is to keep the photo from looking like a painting, but the damage here was pretty extensive. I got fooled by the thumbnail into thinking it was a moderate job, but when I got the full size scan (I'm sure you all have experienced this) I was shocked to find the whole surface of the image was destroyed. This photo must have been soaking- all the emulsion has lifted off the paper and beaded. I can still make out the image, but there was not enough undamaged surface to do regular cloning etc. without leaving a pretty bad mottled texture.
So I've tried as hard as I can to keep it looking natural and real, but it is more of a stylized photo now. I think it looks like a photo that has been intentionally stylized, because the alternative was to leave a lot of damage. I still have many iterations of the repair work stored in the PSD, if this is too much. I tried the sandwich technique, that I've learned in these forums. It gave me great insight into places I needed to work on, but returned way too much damage to correct without leading to the same situation.

Here are the before and after: What do you think? Areas I should work more on? How much should I compromise the repair to maintain some more reality to the pic?
(I've been trying to register with imageshack- no luck so far, so I've thrown up a page for the images:)

http://www.daggger.com/opr1.html

Please tell me what you think.

[Kenny]

Tough call. That's a pretty heavily damaged image. The face still needs a little more work. It looks slightly different than the original. It's going to be really tough to find a balance of over-restoration vs damage. I'll play around a bit with the sandwich technique and see if I can help with ideas.


Kenny

[Kenny]

You're right, the sandwich technique doesn't help on this one. I tried every combination I could with little results.
I can't even really describe what his face needs. When you have both the original and the restored version open in photoshop and switch back and forth, they're basically identical. The eye shape is right, jawline, mouth...everything that usually makes one look "off". I'm thinking maybe it looks a little too smooth. The shading seems to be the same as the original. The original just looks more "youthful" for lack of a better description.

We'll see what some of the others come up with.


Kenny

/boy did you pick a doozy for your first one  :D

[Ausimax]

BeauW,

You relay jumped in at the deep end for your first job, good thing thats how you learn to swim.

I had a little play with your photo, on the face I used the smudge tool set to about 18% work in small circles within the colour area, it tends to blend the pixels smoothly( I often find the smudge tool better on B/W images than the clone for evening out damage) What I have done is a rough 10min job, work over the face and blend it smooth and you can push your colour shades about with the smudge, and the smudge is good for blending the face/hairline join, if when you have finished the face if you need more shading add another layer set its blending mode to colour, select the shade you need and paint in the shading on the new layer, you can then set the shade by altering the layer opacity.

For the hair I just picked a piece of hair with good colour, set that as the clone sample point and set opacity to about 50% that way you can build up your colour and texture.

The Tie, I roughly selected the outline it should have, then cloned the colour from the centre into the selection.

The shirt, I selected the area I did, picked out a light colour (the whitest looking) it looks a creamy colour ( you don't want white, its to harsh) then paint that colour at low opacity into the selection, by painting at a low opacity you can let some of the texture from the damage show through, you don't want it to look to pristine.

This is just a rough job to show what may help you , the smudge is handy along areas where colours join and that damn healing tool bleeds, and even working in a selection it still does it!




I hope this is of help to you.

Max

[BeauW]

Thanks for your replies, I worked it a bit more and sent it in.

Taking a breath and then I'll start another.

Really learned a lot on this.

[TimeTraveler]

Join the thumbnail club ;)  It's easy to underestimate the damage when looking at a small photo.  I suspect everyone here has done it.

I think you've done an excellent job, however, I agree that the face could use a little more work.  I don't have any advice on that but it just doesn't look finished. 

But, like I said, you have done a great job, especially for your first restoration.  The thumbnails can fool you.  I did the same thing with my first.  It didn't look too bad, until I got the high res version...Wheeeee....

Again, you did a great job on this one.  The details in the face are about 99% right, there's just something really minor missing but  I don't know what it is.  I think it looks great the way it is.

[TimeTraveler]

What is the sandwich technique?  I've been using PS for years and have never heard of it?
You can mail me at [email protected] because I don't visit the forums often.
Thanks,
Greg


uote]

[glennab]

Hi Beau

I played with the guy that you just sent in and I wanted to post this not only for you to look at but for comments as to whether this works-- I just played with it for a little while to get some of his face cleaned up.  I've left a lot of the grain, but I think it works better than the really smooth look, especially on these old photos. Any comments?  I'm asking partly because I have a new restoration of a little boy with a lot of grain, too, and I'm thinking that keeping most of it would be the way to go.  It's so difficult not to get "painterly" when working on these tough ones.



And I was just "victim" to the thumbnail syndrome as well.  My little boy looked difficult, but do-able.  Once I got the full size it was HOLY CROW!  I'll be at this one for a while!  But since I've thought the same of each of my attempts so far I should have known I'd be looking at much more damage than anticipated.  Love doing them anyway!

GG