Please Critique My Little Girl

Charlene5 · October 25, 2007, 11:30:59 PM

My goal was to retain the feel of the original - minus the tinting - and to try not to make it look brand new. I tried to confine myself to the damage and a general clean up. I knew the poor child was sitting on something - thought that it may have been a bench - so I suggested a piano bench. It is purposely dark and unclear because I didn't know what was there. I had the most trouble with her missing arm and hand and I'm not at all sure I'm happy with how I treated the background. Comments and picks please!

Mhayes · October 26, 2007, 02:45:35 AM

You did a great job cleaning up the baby and the bench looks great. Now she doesn't look like she is floating in midair. I would bring back the tint as it adds to the charm of the picture. Removing it does make the picture look more modern, but it also looks stark in contrast. Nice job on the added arm and hand, but maybe add some chubbiness to the upper arm. On the original photo, check out where the shadows fall on the clothing and also on the baby. The shadows will give your picture more depth. Also, I would darken the area around the head and not leave the halo that surrounds the baby. Cheers, you've got the worst part taken care of and now what is left is just fine tuning.

Hannie · October 26, 2007, 06:07:51 AM

Hi MJ,

You have done a wonderful job, well done! If you would like to leave it in sepia I have no further picks. (No, I'm not feeling sick today) ha ha!
I couldn't resist playing with color a bit and here is what I did.
I color corrected the original (better is it to also to smooth out some of the worst stains, I didn't this time) and pasted it in your photo. Then moved it down the layers palette so the sepia one was on top. Set the blending mode of the top layer to luminosity and fiddled with the opacity a bit.

Hannie

Ratz · October 26, 2007, 07:58:54 AM

Hi Charlene, nice job on the clean up and I agree with MarCat that the bench looks great :up:
I would suggest that this is an old hand-coloured photo (my mother had one of me when I was about one),
a colour photo with the cheeks, lips and hair highlighted with coloured paint after printing.
IMHO this one would benefit from being retouched with colour and a light sepia overlay.
regards Vicki :)

Charlene5 · October 26, 2007, 01:21:10 PM

Got up this morning and looked at her with rested eyes. Took on board your suggestions (all spot on, thank you!) and this is the result. I fattened up the far arm, redid the background, adjusted some highlights, and gave her a light hand tint. Is she ready to go home now?

Ratz · October 26, 2007, 04:04:16 PM

She's beautiful, send here home :up:

Tess (Tassie D) · October 26, 2007, 08:00:02 PM

:up2: Great job MJ.

Mhayes · October 26, 2007, 11:35:41 PM

Beautiful! :up:

OPRAng · October 28, 2007, 09:25:01 PM

Nice work!

glennab · October 28, 2007, 11:01:55 PM

Hi MJ,

I think this little lady looks fabulous. I'm glad you removed the "glow" around her head. I like the background much better now. The only two things I'd question is whether the fold in the fabric behind her arm closest to us should have a little more depth in the shading, like the original. And for some reason her left foot looks truncated -- almost disconnected from her leg. I suspect that's a shading thing too, as her right foot is so close to the left one. Small stuff on a really fine job!

Bless

Glenna