Class Photo

[jaytrumpet]

I would like comments and suggestions on this, my second restoration job for OPR. What did I miss or screw up?

[Bambi]

Amazing job, Jay. Noticed there's still a bit of discoloration in the boy's pants, front row left. Same with the boy front row right. A little bit of discoloration in that boy's hair, too. Good job on all those bricks.

[jaytrumpet]

Thanks Bambi,

I had a hell of a time with those parts. Seems to be a kind of whitish film (like smoke) on a lot of that photo. There was/is a line of it along the bottom (along the kid's legs on the bottom row). I got rid of a lot of it with a ton of work using the clone brush when I could, but there is still some of it around in spots (like the ones you mentioned). Any suggestions on other ways to combat it?

[Mhayes]

 Jay, while this still needs some tweaking, you have done a great job on the cleanup. The white film is most likely water damage combined with an old photo that has changed with age. Besides what Bambi has mentioned, the bricks and the window on your far right catches my eye. I would try to balance the color of the bricks on the wall on your right with the rest or vice versa. It might be easier to sample the bricks on the right with the eye dropper and then add a new layer with the mode to Color. Then brush over part of the other bricks to give more of the red/orange color--lower opacity as needed. It really doesn't matter which way you go, but you want more of similar color on all the bricks. I'm thinking what you are seeing on the front has had the color washed out.

On the window on your far left (yellow from damage); I would take the magic wand and make selections of the yellow parts of the frame and then do a Ctrl J or Cmd J to put that selection on its own layer. Select the layer, change the mode to Color and then sample the color of the window frame next to it. Then go back to the other window and paint over. Since the mode is color it will still show the texture underneath and not look painted.

Great to see you tackled these school photos that have so much damage.  :up:

Margie

[jaytrumpet]

Margie & Bambi,

I took your advice, went back and tried to fix a few things. Check it out and give me your thoughts.

Jay

[Mhayes]

Jay, much better! Before you upload this photo back, increase your magnification to at least 200% and go over your photo to see where there might be some damage left. You're in the homes stretch.

Margie

[Marydh]

Hi Jay,
You did a magnificent job!  You sure picked one.
Is there any way you could take another look at the
blonde boy...third from the left...top row?  The right side
(our left) of his face looks a little odd.  Hope I'm not being
too nitpicky.
Mary

[jaytrumpet]

Mary,

Yeah his smile does look weird, but that is what was on the original! On this version I used the warp tool and slightly brought his smile in and up so it looks a bit more natural. I know I'm not supposed to do this kind of thing for OPR projects. I realize the "code of ethics" here is a fairly strict. For this photo, with so many faces and with the minimal amount of tampering I did, I think it's OK.

[TerryB]

Out of curiosity, should we also straighten the photos when they're crooked?

[Mhayes]

Terry, usually when we crop before uploading we crop and straighten. However, if the photo was not straight to begin with it goes out that way. I will check later on this one and this was a concern Jay had mentioned earlier.

Margie

[kiska]

I think it's best not to straighten or transform any photo. QC might need to overlay the original onto the restore to correct something and changing the perspective on the restore makes that very difficult and time consuming

[Bambi]

Great job, Jay.

Excellent point, Kiska.