Please take a look at this one. Trees were fun. Let me know what you think.
Thanks, Mary
(https://i.postimg.cc/fkg4cSyd/Orig-for-forum.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/fkg4cSyd)
(https://i.postimg.cc/WhDBXpqH/to-forum-1.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/WhDBXpqH)
Fun?? You get some sort of patience award for that!
I think there's a ton of good stuff in your restore, but it needs to look less painted and more like a photo. All the tree branch edges are sharp and need to be blurry (you might want to do that on a separate layer to preserve all the work in the original restoration (one way would be to set the blur brush to all layers on the new layer). Same thing where the older girl's hair meets her bow.
There are no shadows on the girls' dresses and the original shadows were very dark and hard. In addition to making a layer with shadows, I brightened some of the girls' dresses - Curves adjustment layer set to screen blend mode.
The grass has lost its shadow tones (which I brought back with two adjustment layers; one curves set to hard light blend mode and the other a Hue/Saturation to remove the overly saturated tones that produced). I put the reflection of the tree branches into the river with your tree branches flipped and skewed and set to soft light blend mode - it's not the same as the original exactly, but you could paint it in if you preferred.
I did a few of the tree branches edge softness just for illustration, but not all. See what you think (flip my version on and off above yours and you'll see where I made changes)
(https://i.postimg.cc/TLGy47g5/Two-girls-trees-edited.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/TLGy47g5)
Eh Mary, I hate to break this to you, but I think you have crossed over to the over side of sanity. Take a breather and have your family stage an intervention. Or, have an insane amount of fun working this one. I'm not for sure that gray-blue in the ditch is water. If it is I would not make so vivid a blue as I find my eyes going to it and the sky above. I think that perhaps the sky would be reflecting in the water and that it will have variations in shades.have Kudos for all that you had accomplished.
:up:
Beautiful restore, I also love Jo Ann's shading tips!
Thank you all. I'll get to work on all the good tips. 🤓
Margie, family already knows I've gone to the other side. They've given up. 😱
Really nice so far Mary. Look forward to the final.
See what you ladies think of this version. I took a sky/tree layer from a while ago that still had damage and then overlayed that with a reduced opacity which took down some of the sharpness then I blurred. Hope the grass is ok. I actually used color burn. Seemed to work better for me.
Thanks for the help.
Mary
Forgot to post.
(https://i.postimg.cc/dhnr1yD0/To-Forum-2.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/dhnr1yD0)
Hi Mary.. great job so far.. maybe the edges of the dresses and legs etc seem a tad sharp to me? others may have better input.. wonderful work! :up:
I like the tree branches much better.
I agree with Lynn about the dress edges and I think the grass looks blotchy - did you apply your darkening selectively? Perhaps feather the mask a bit more? I still would go for darker shadows in the grass, I think. And from the girls' legs/dresses - it's very harsh sunlight
There are some details around the neckline of the taller girl's pinafore dress that don't quite match the original, but those are minor cleanups.
You'll be dreaming about tree branches!
Mary, I like this one much better and a few more tweaks and it will be good to go.
Well, I think I did all the tweaking. I believe it might be time for an intervention.
What do you all think now?
(https://i.postimg.cc/njJH8Y9z/To-Forum-3.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/njJH8Y9z)
There's a little white spot on the taller girl's neck that keeps catching my eye, but otherwise I think they look good.
Just make sure the next image has no tree branches :)
Take a look at the grass between the girls shoes and shadows. It's blurred and the rest is more defined. What a toughy!!
Jo Ann, do you mean where the sun is shining on it?
Candice, thanks I'll take a look.
On the taller girl, look at where her neck meets her jaw line on the left side of the image. Follow that imaginary line straight down about 2/3 the way to her shirt edge and you'll see it. Just a speck of white that should be skin colored
Ok gals. You might notice I put "To Forum last" in the description. I'm at the point of no return.
:0)
(https://i.postimg.cc/9z2ss3hP/To-forum-last.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/9z2ss3hP)
In that case, it looks perfect :)
(If not, the white fleck is still there - see if your distributor is bothered by it, and if not, it probably won't show up on a print anyway...)
You now need a therapeutic cookie or glass of wine or ... :)
Oh I've got the wine. 🍷 I really would love to see the white dot you are talking about....hint, hint.
Thank you all for your help 😎
Just a guess, but I'm betting behind the little girl and to your left of the land point? Like Jo Ann suggestion, more for the wine part. :up:
Way to go Mary!!
A little something to go with that wine ^-^
(https://i.postimg.cc/bZBwqmQy/2019-04-17-Twin-Cuties.jpg) (https://postimg.cc/bZBwqmQy)
Great job Mary... I brought something too :up: :up:
(https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-DqSF7J7/0/c0ea841a/XL/i-DqSF7J7-XL.jpg)
Where's my fork?
Here ya go my friend.. and there's a fork each for everyone....have at it Mary...
(https://photos.smugmug.com/photos/i-rnb97Zd/0/2607a06b/M/i-rnb97Zd-M.jpg)
Thank you! Yumskers!
Jo Ann, I just saw the speck! Yay!
I am sorry I didn't get back here yesterday. I was just about to go and make an enlarged version of the girl's neck for you, but am delighted you found it :)
What's odd is that I didn't see it until I looked at the last one I posted on The Forum. I wonder why I can't see it every well
on Photoshop.
Mary, sometimes you have to back away from your work for a little and then when you look again it just pops out at ya! Well, it works that way for me.
I think it's like the difference between reading and proofreading - you need to mentally switch gears when looking for defects in images.
Assuming adequate hardware (i.e. I don't ever try to do that sort of thing on a phone or tablet) and lighting in the room - and after a break from editing (but not a wine break!!) - look at the whole image zoomed way out and then zoom in at 200% (or more) and scan the whole thing.
Sometimes adding an adjustment solely to help see problems can help - for white spots, adding a curves adjustment layer set to multiply blend mode will help; for finding sensor spots Hard Light blend mode works well. The image looks whacky but the flaws jump right out.
The more you do it, the less effort it will take, and after a while, it's hard to not notice these things :)
Great tip Jo Ann. Thanks
Me again. Trying your technique Jo Ann. What are sensor spots?
You would find those in digital photographs when the camera's sensor had small specs of dust on them. Here's an example
https://www.cambridgeincolour.com/tutorials/camera-sensor-cleaning.htm
You won't see this on older film photos, but as a technique, using Hard Light blend mode to emphasize glitches can be useful with similar types of image problems. Sometimes you have to pair that adjustment layer with another Curves Adjustment layer set to Screen (to lighten) or Multiply (to darken) to get the optimal view.
Thanks again Jo Ann. I'll give it a whirl.