Comments? Please.

[Bambi]

I started with these two photos of the same people at the same event. I pieced together all the undamaged parts and started from there. 





Here's where I am. This is still very much a WIP. Please help me make it right. I'm seeing these people in my dreams!

[Hannie]

What a great restore Bambi!  Really smart to use the 2 photos to make one good one.

One thing that jumps out at me when I look at the larger version after I click on it is the that the subjects look like cutouts.  That can be fixed by getting rid of all the "light" edges around their silhouettes.

[Mhayes]

Bambi, what an outstanding job!  :up:

Margie

[Bambi]

Thank you, Hannie and Margie. They do still look like paper dolls and I need to do a little more on the faces of the man in the brown sweater and the man with the red tie. (I'm particularly pleased with that tie. I found a tiny bit of print at the tip of the tie. Scales of Justice.) Any other suggestions to help blend the people with the background? Blurring too much makes halos. Hard edges look almost as fake.

Bambi

[Hannie]

I often use this method to get rid of the cutout effect:

-really zoom in close, like 500 or 600% almost on pixel level
-with a soft edged small clone brush get rid of the "white" line against the background
-with a 50% blur brush, very small, soften the edge in one stroke.

Hope this helps!

Hannie

[Bambi]

Is this better?

[PhotoBob]

Bambi I think it looks great now  :up:  Another way to get rid of those white outlines is to use the clone tool again, only with the blend mode set to Darken. Basically, this way it will only "see" the white outline and clone over it. You have to carefully pick which side to clone from.

PhotoBob

[Pat]

Great tip PhotoBob.  :up:

[Bambi]

It still looked a little like a diorama to me, so I tried blurring the background and blending the people into the dark flash shadow better. Also did some work on the man in the brown sweater. I think he looks better now.

Great tip, PhotoBob. All help is more than welcome.

Bambi

[PhotoBob]

Bambi, I have an idea that might help: Go back and look what you started with !!!!!! The improvement is INCREDIBLE!  :up: For the record, I like the other version better  :)

Bob

[Bambi]

Wow. Thanks, Bob. I still have the unblurred background, so I can go back.

It's strange to have no real reference in the originals. What you come up will—or should—look anything like it, so it never looks quite right. I keep remembering a lot of bright yellow in the original! It's been an adventure.

Bambi

[Bambi]

Hannie? Margie? What do you think?

[PhotoBob]

Bambi, I did one of those images, and it was NOTHING compared to the one you tackled. I'm terrible at doing faces (in fact Hannie helped me along with the face that was goofed up in my image - that's our secret  ;) )  So whatever you decide to do with the background - or maybe what Margie or Hannie thinks, pat yourself on the back real hard, you deserve it - that one was hard!

Bob

[Mhayes]

Bambi, I think you have done a great job blending in the people to the background. I know this is late in the game---kind of like waiting till the house is built and asking for another room, but. . .

You have done a great job, but if you look at the blue channel you will see detail there that is different than what you have in your finished version. See what you think and sorry I didn't ask sooner.



Margie

[Mhayes]

OK, it looks like yours was based on the top photo of the two. Now I see why the difference---nothing like being slow.  :)

Margie