School boy

[Jonas.Wendorf]

Hey there :-),

after that tough restore I just did, this one was quite easy and relaxing.

First I'd like to show you the before/after pictures, after that I'll give a little walk-trough for those interested.

Before:
After:


First I did something I do on almost every picture I get: I analyzed all the different channels from RGB, CMYK and LAB.
I found the Blue channel to work best, so I put a new Channel Mixer adj. layer in "Luminosity" mode to get rid of some blemishes. I also had to add in some red and subtract some green to get the luminosity right overall.

After that I split the frequencies (if you're unfamiliar with the process, please see this post here: http://www.operationphotorescue.org/forum/index.php/topic,2687.msg25139.html#msg25139 where I explain the separation of shape, detail and color), worked on the LOW layer to get the overall tonality right, cloned and healed on the HIGH layer to clean up most of the blemishes.

I also did some dodging and burning to correct areas like his left eye and smooth transitions a little more.

For the teeth I selected, copied and pasted different teeth and used Free Transform to fit them.

His ear had to be replaced completely. I copied the other side, flipped it and scaled it a little. Then I used curves to get the luminosity and color right and the Healing Brush to fix the transition.

That's about it :-).
To help me see everything in detail I used some adj. layers to desaturate, darken, find differences in saturation/color and a solar curve.


As I said, nothing too fancy about this one :-).
Looking forward to your critique!


Edit: Arg! I just uploaded the thumbs. New images coming :-).

[lurch]

Hi Jonas -

Very nice job. I do have a few of corrections to suggest, however. I think the white spot on the boy's left ear is damage, not an earring. It resembles in size and shape many of the background damage spots, and his right earlobe (what there is of it) has nothing on it. There appears to be a pronounced cyan cast to the image (assuming the note on the photo's upper left corner is on white paper). Finally, the boy's re-constructed right eye doesn't look right. It appears to be larger, top to bottom, than the good eye; also appears to be missing catchlights and eyelash shadows.

I really like your walk-throughs; they're full of useful tips that can be used on other restores. Please keep it up!

[Jonas.Wendorf]

Hi lurch,

thank you for your great feedback!
I healed away what I thought was earrings and corrected the cyan cast. However if the note on the top left would be a shade of gray, he was extremely red, so I tried his shirt and got more decent results of it :-).
Reconstruction was never what I do best ;-)
I decided, that flipping his good eye and replacing the catchlights would work better, than doing it manually.

So here's the updated (and hopefully better) version of it:

If my walk-throughs can help anybody for their restores, I'll continue with it :-).

[Mhayes]

Hi Jonas,

Great job on the restore. I agree with Lurch on the spot on the boy's left ear being damage. I did leave a message with the owner on the ear and also whether shirt is a light blue or white--will let you know when I get an answer. I also agree about the boy's right eye and the one thing I notice is the lack of catch lights (white dots in pupils from lighting). See the Blue Channel below with a Levels Adjustment and you will see the catch lights in both eyes. You will see two dots and that is normal depending on what the photographer was using for lighting. There will be times when you don't have them, but they do make the eyes look more real. Also, notice on the Blue Channel that you have a good reference for the hairline, eyes, teeth, and the other ear. I think the hairline on the boy's right side should be closer to the opposite side and not angle down as much. Also, sorry about the sticky on the photo--that needs to be removed. Normally those notes are not posted on the photo itself.





You might want to do lighten some of the areas on his shirt. On your left hand side of his shirt; I would lighten this up a little and areas in the fold will be darker. You have done a real good job so far and just a minor nit pic.

I enjoy seeing how you went about restoring this one and enjoy your tutorials and learn a lot. If you reference back, it helps to past the link as it is sometimes hard to sort through all the past posts. One thing that might have helped with the eyes and the one ear is a tip from Kiska on a former post:
http://www.operationphotorescue.org/forum/index.php/topic,2296.msg22401.html#msg22401
You could use that and mask out what you don't want.

Margie

P.S. We posted about the same time and I did not see your response. The note would not be gray, but a yellow sticky.

[Jonas.Wendorf]

Hi Margie,

I moved the hairline a little more to the right and down (easy, because it's just a copy&paste from the other side).
The sticky is removed now ☺ (I was already wondering... ;-)). Used a feathered selection from the other side, copied and flipped it and finally used a layer mask to reveal it just where it needed to be (this way the transition area is easier to accomplish).
To lighten the left side of his shirt I used dodge & burn again. A new layer in "Soft Light" mode gives the ability to lighten specific areas with white and darken others with black (for this one I lightened the shirt and darkened the fold a little).



You're of course right about having to search for the old posts.
I'll update my initial post with the direct link :-)

[kiska]

Here is a REAL quickie. I think the "slashes" in his hair are damage. He definitely has on a school uniform and I don't think that kind of do would be allowed.

[Jonas.Wendorf]

Filled the slashes in with the clone stamp on "Darken" mode and a little dodge & burn to tone it down a little.



Obviously I'll have to learn to identify damage now ;-).

[Jonas.Wendorf]

Filled the slashes in with the clone stamp on "Darken" mode and a little dodge & burn (clipped to a Brightness/Contrast adj. layer in "Luminosity" mode to prevent color shifts)  to tone it down a little.



Obviously I'll have to learn to identify damage now ;-).

[lurch]

Jonas, your latest really looks great.

[Hannie]

Obviously I'll have to learn to identify damage now ;-).

Don't beat yourself Jonas, the little "shaved" bits in his hair had me fooled too until Kiska mentioned it is damage.   I zoomed in really close in the original photo and Kiska is right.

I like Kiska's version of the boy's left hairline, perhaps you could use it for reference to touch up your restore some more?

Great job so far,

Hannie

[Jonas.Wendorf]

Don't beat yourself Jonas, the little "shaved" bits in his hair had me fooled too until Kiska mentioned it is damage.   I zoomed in really close in the original photo and Kiska is right.

Don't worry I was just kidding. That's the great thing about this forum: if you don't see the damage yourself, surely someone else will :-).

I updated my version again, this time the hair line looks a little more natural (again copied, pasted, flipped and used some dodge & burn among Hue/Saturation to make it fit):

[lurch]

Jonas, while I was playing around with the other photo of what I assume is the same young man, couldn't resist doing a 'by the numbers' color correction on your excellent result, since I had accused it of having the same sort of cyan cast. Here's the outcome, as done on both the original and your latest.

In the original I used a piece of exposed paper for the white point. In your restoration I used the brightest tooth (which admittedly wouldn't have been pure white, but I wanted to see where the shirt fell). For the black point in both images I used one of the black squares in his plaid tie. Here's what came out:





Based on these, I'd say his shirt was blue. We could have guessed from the color of the shadows . . .

[Jonas.Wendorf]

lurch, I really like your results and did similar to my version :-)
I used levels, held down the [Alt]-key and dragged the white & black points in each channel right before there was clipping.
That should neutralize any color cast (and it looks way better now!), but didn't give me that extremely reddish face I got when I tried your method.
I also fixed some more saturation differences on his forehead that had bothered me the whole time ☺

Btw., his shirt is cyan now: (13)a, (4)b (was: (3)a, (2)b); his face is still more yellow, than magenta: 11a, 21b (was: 17a, 19b). That should be correct now :-).



Edit: Uploading now.
Thanks again for your help everybody ☺