Hi everyone--I picked up this photo a few days ago, and have made some progress, but would like to know if the color is correct, and what other things still need to be done. I'd appreciate all the help I can get ??? Also, please note the mark on the cheek of the woman on the right, does that look like damage, or a bluish scar of some sort? And the red at the top of the same person's chair--I noticed something on the top of the chair of the other woman, and am not sure what that is, so I left both in until someone else could check it out. Thanks!
(http://i1051.photobucket.com/albums/s423/pic-dr/OPR%20pics%20working%20on/jonesk379_16_5x4.jpg)
(http://i1051.photobucket.com/albums/s423/pic-dr/OPR%20pics%20working%20on/jonesk379_16_5x4-wip4.jpg)
Hi Larry,
This is one of those photos that using a Levels Adjustment is the best route rather than Curves. In fact you do not want to use both or you will have an over saturated photo like what you have. I'm not sure about what is on the chair, but it appears to be decorative, but not sure of the color so I would leave as you have it. I really couldn't tell much about the mark on the woman on the right, but I think it is damage. Other than that I think it looks good.
Margie
Thanks Margie--OK, I removed a bit of saturation overall, not sure if it's enough though. Any more, and it made the faces start to look a little ghostly... I also removed the blue mark from the girls cheek, and damage I hadn't noticed before on the other woman's sleeve, where the 'blue curve' was. I think this one looks a bit better. Let me know what you think--I'd like to get this as good as possible, and am more than willing to listen. :)
(http://i1051.photobucket.com/albums/s423/pic-dr/OPR%20pics%20working%20on/jonesk379_16_5x4-wip5.jpg)
Hi, Larry:
Nice work so far! I agree with Margie that is is still a little too dark and you're right about the skin tones that were already washed out in the original. Try using the Brightness/Contrast panel:
The Brightness/Contrast command is best used on selected portions of an image. Use this command to adjust the brightness of an entire image or to reduce contrast results in an image that doesn't use the entire available tonal range. The Levels and Shadow/Highlight commands are better choices for making tonal adjustments.
Do one of the following in the Editor:
Choose Enhance > Adjust Lighting > Brightness/Contrast to make adjustments directly to image pixels.
Choose Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Brightness/Contrast to make adjustments to a layer.
Drag the sliders to adjust the brightness and contrast, then click OK.
Dragging to the left decreases the level; dragging to the right increases it. The number at the right of each slider displays the brightness or contrast value.
Bambi
Larry,
I'll chime in on the red seen at the top to the chair on the viewer's right. I notice a plant in full view which leads me to believe that the red is from a flowering plant perhaps a poinsettia or something with a large bloom.
If I understand Bambi correctly she is saying the Brightness/Contrast adjustment works best on selected areas unless you are doing the whole photo. Before you do this you may want to use the Lasso tool and make selections of the areas. By all means name and save your selections. That way if you need to go back you don't have to redraw the area. I would suggest that you do each area separately in case one area is good but another needs more tweaking.
Johnboy
Thanks Bambi and Johnboy, I took your advice, and learned a lot from it--especially in learning how to use layers and selections. I'm able to do a lot of tasks much easier now, and the result is an improved (I hope) picture emerging.
You'll notice many of the tiles restored, certain places lightened others darkened. These techniques are great and I really appreciate your help.
Here's where I am so far, all suggestions gratefully accepted. :)
(http://i1051.photobucket.com/albums/s423/pic-dr/OPR%20pics%20working%20on/jonesk379_16_5x4-wip7copy.jpg)
Hi Larry,
What a beautiful repair job you did!
This is one of those really hard to levels/color correct photos.
You managed to bring out the detail in the faces, especially of the lady on our left. I think that went at the expense of the overall tone of the photo. Margie already mentioned that you will only want to do levels on this photo but even there you can get into trouble:
In the red and green levels you don't want to slide beyond the flat black line on each side of the graph. The blue channel should be left alone.
The image is still too dark after these levels. You can then merge visible and go to Image->Adj.->Shad/Highl. and slide the shadow slider to 21%.
To brighten it up some more you can lift the RGB curve slightly in a curves adjustment layer.
The lady's face will be blown out but that is how the photo was taken. You can always, with a layer mask, adjust the faces a little.
Hannie
(http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb18/marijtje2/OPR/jonesk379_16_.jpg)
Thanks for the advice Hannie :)
In an effort to accomplish both lightening the pic and preserving the details on the faces and hair, I created a new layer, selected the faces, inverted the selection, and applied the brightness/shadow/contrast and saturation changes to the rest of the pic.
I think I accomplished what I tried to do, I thought the details on the faces would be important to the family, and I really don't know how bad the original was before it was damaged, so I tried to be 'diplomatic' about my approach. I hope that's ok.
Thanks again,
Larry
(http://i1051.photobucket.com/albums/s423/pic-dr/OPR%20pics%20working%20on/jonesk379_16_5x4-wip8copy.jpg)
PS--the one thing that always bothered me was the color of the leg of the pedestal table. It looked too yellow compared with the rest of the wood, so I have fixed that using the same methods outlined above. The latest version has the wood nearly perfectly matched...Seems there're always a few more pixels to fix :) I can post that change if anyone feels it necessary.
Hi Larry,
You've put a lot of hard work into this photo and it's paying off.
A couple of things are bothersome however. Both of the girls seem to have a blue cast to their faces and the girl on the right (as you look at the photo) seems to have a "white glob" just below the corner of her mouth.
Pat
Hi Pat,
Yes, I agree. The white blob is some kind of artifact that got introduced somewhere along the way, I hadn't noticed it, but it's corrected here. The bluish cast seems to be in all of the pics, even in the yellow stained original, you can see it if you look hard at the eyebrows of the lady on the left. I'm wondering if a combination of fluorescent lighting and a flash caused it.
I tried to get rid of that bluish cast, but couldn't lose it all, and trust me, I've tried. If anyone knows of a way to do that I'd love to know. I tried playing with all the color channels, hue and saturation, everything I could throw at it, but to little or worse effect. :( The guy doesn't seem to have the problem, but the women definitely do..other than try to transplant skin from him, I have no idea how to eliminate it.
Here is my best attempt (so far) to fix those problems:
(http://i1051.photobucket.com/albums/s423/pic-dr/OPR%20pics%20working%20on/jonesk379_16_5x4-wip9.jpg)
Hi Larry,
This is just a very quick and sloppy job of it, but it gives you an idea of how much the girl's coloring can be changed with the color replacement brush in PS. The problem is I have absolutely no experience with PE and no idea if it has the equivalent tools.
(http://i1210.photobucket.com/albums/cc406/PatsPhotos1/LarryHelp.jpg)
Pat
Hi Pat,
I looked and there is no color replacement brush in Elements 10. I'll have to check and see if Photo Plus has one, and if so, I can use that. The fix you did looks great, I'd love to be able to do that, so I'll look into it today..
Hi Larry,
Looks like you are getting closer, but switching between softwares is not the answer. "Throwing everything you have at it," isn't the answer either. I hate to sound like a broken record, but with time and practice you will get to know your software's tools and won't need to "throw everything at it," because you will know where the problem is. A month or two later is not going to get you up to speed with those who have been doing it for years. Plus, you are at a disadvantage here with most of us using PS and cannot tell you what to do on PE.
QuoteI tried to get rid of that bluish cast, but couldn't lose it all, and trust me, I've tried. If anyone knows of a way to do that I'd love to know. I tried playing with all the color channels, hue and saturation, everything I could throw at it, but to little or worse effect.
I'm not sure what you mean when you said you tried playing with all the color channels, when PE will not let you work in the individual channels? When you have done a basic color correction with Levels, you don't won't to be messing with the "Hues & Saturation" unless you do a layer's mask, because what you are doing then is messing up the color correction you just got through doing.
What I would do if you can is to make a blank layer above last restore you are showing on the forum. Double click on your foreground window (white) and bring up the color palette and pick a soft pink> change your color mode on your layers palette to "Color" and paint in pink on the two girl's faces> lower the opacity where it looks natural.
Good Luck!
Margie
Hi Margie,
*smile* I didn't mean that quite so literally, "throwing everything I had at it", I meant trying every avenue individually to try to achieve the best result. And I'm really not trying to become an expert overnight, although I did work all night on this one--and expect to work more on it. I know I have a lot to learn. Unfortunately, I was working on the pic when you last posted, so I didn't yet get a chance to try out your tips.
The software--Elements is not a full featured editor, though it does have some very good tools, most of which I've used at one point or another fixing this one, but when someone suggested I try a tool--color replacing brush--it just isn't there, so I tried, with some success, to use a similar tool in Photo-Plus, which is like a poor cousin to Photoshop. I've discovered you can make some changes to colors in channels with Elements, but not full channel editing.
Photo Plus does most of what Photoshop does, (I think) but not nearly as well, and with lots of bugs. But it's full retail price is under $100. I paid $25 for it.. However, I did discover a tool there that is called 'paint to select', which I guess is like the color replacement brush in PS, but which is confusing and buggy, though I managed to do a better job with the complexions with a lot of trial and error with it and some minor painting. I'll post the result I got, and you can tell me if I still need to start over using your instructions. Fair enough?
(http://i1051.photobucket.com/albums/s423/pic-dr/OPR%20pics%20working%20on/jonesk379_16_5x4-wip-latest.jpg)
Hi, Larry:
I've had mixed results using the Color Replacement Brush and prefer Margie's suggestion about painting on a New Layer in Color Mode. When you have the skin painted, also try setting the layer to Soft Light and see which looks more natural. Color Mode is usually best, but sometimes Soft Light looks a little better, so I always check both. Good job so far, Larry. You're really making progress in PE!
Bambi
Thanks Bambi, and everyone else!
OK, now I think I've got something to show that looks good to me--that last pic also looked blue-skinned. This one doesn't. :)
(http://i1051.photobucket.com/albums/s423/pic-dr/OPR%20pics%20working%20on/jonesk379_16_5x4-wip-latest-1.jpg)
Hi Larry,
I thought I would point out something I noticed. The woman with the blue jacket on appears to have her feet crossed in the original damaged photo. In the restored photo her shoes appear to be be side by side or perhaps a side view of one shoe? Also the shoes appear to have a bit of color on them, mostly the one? This is just an observation, not sure if it is that important an element in the photo or not. Good job so far.
Angela
Hi Angela,
I Had to smile when I read your post--because I agonized over the 'sneakers' thing. After looking at it around a thousand times, I finally came to believe that the lady's left foot was on the floor, and the right was on the pedestal leg of the table. (I've had a table like that one, and always did the same thing) You're certainly right that there is color on the right shoe, but after looking at that many times, I concluded that the red you see is damage.
Of course, I could be wrong about both, but that area was so badly damaged, it was really hard to tell, and I'm still not positive. I tried to use what was left of the laces on the one shoe, and put some of that on the other, but your guess is as good as mine--at least. :-\
Thanks for the input, and hope to hear more from you!
This is rough but might be the way the woman's feet are. Her right foot IS resting on the table leg.
(http://i294.photobucket.com/albums/mm81/kiskaopr/Picture2-24.png)
Thanks for solving that riddle kiska!
I'm posting the latest version--I've darkened the lady's shoes and made a few other minor mods to the shoes, modifying the heel on the left foot for one--but I didn't put the red into the sneakers, because I'm convinced that is damage.
Any further suggestions on this one? I keep finding more damage in places I hadn't noticed it, particularly on the wood, but because the entire photo had a 'film' over it, it would be nearly impossible to get all of it. Does the work I've done on the faces pass muster?
(http://i1051.photobucket.com/albums/s423/pic-dr/OPR%20pics%20working%20on/jonesk379_16_5x4-wip-latest-2.jpg)
OK, this is the latest version. Would someone please tell me if it's ready to send in, or if I've missed something? I've toned down the brightness of the shoes and repaired the chair in the foreground, as well as cleaned up as much damage as I could find.
Thanks!
(http://i1051.photobucket.com/albums/s423/pic-dr/OPR%20pics%20working%20on/jonesk379_16_5x4-wip-02-15.jpg)
Larry
Larry,
You did a good job cleaning up the damage.
The faces of the two female and the hand of the woman in blue are flat in your final image. Although the original looked washout but they still retain the contour. You may want to preserve these three part in the original.
Shujen
Hi Shujen,
I tried several times to do what you suggested--after duplicating the original, and using that as the background layer, and putting the last version I posted on top of it to mask it, I experimented with the opacity of the eraser, but no matter how lightly I used the eraser brush, the original pale color of the faces kept showing though, and was far less appealing than the version you see above. The best way I can describe the faces was washed out.
If you think I'm doing something wrong, I'd be grateful to hear how to correct it, but it was difficult (at least for me) to get a satisfactory result. The 'trade off' between losing a very small amount of detail on the faces or having a more natural color to them convinced me that I was getting a better result this way. But as I said, I am very willing to try a method that gives a better result.
Larry,
I don't want to answer for Shujen, but couldn't help but wonder at how you are approaching this and also your final conclusion of:
QuoteThe 'trade off' between losing a very small amount of detail on the faces or having a more natural color to them convince me that I was getting better result this way.
It may seem like a small detail, but I'm not so sure I would call this a "more natural color" as a painted face makes it looks like she got hit with Calamine lotion. When you loose detail underneath then you have a painted look and there is no variation, but rather a flat color and no shading.
To each his own on choice of tools, but the one tool I never use is the "eraser" tool as it destroys pixels. Maybe you didn't mean the eraser tool, but using the brush on the layer mask and bringing back the layer below?
What you could have taken was the version before the painted face version and added a blank layer above it>change the layer's mode to "Color." The reason you change it to color is that it will add color but the contours and shading will stay intact and you won't have a flat painted face. Double click on your foreground color panel to brink up the color picker. Just for an example I did that and picked a very soft pink: R:233; G:182; B:222. I then went above and on my soft brush I used 54% opacity and a flow of 50% and then brushed in the color on the girl's cheeks. I then went to layer's panel and lowered the opacity to 63%. This added color and the facial features are still in place. With this version you could have it now as your bottom layer and then drop your latest version on top. Next add a layer mask (reveal all--mask is white) and then with your brush, hit X which will make your foreground black, paint over the face that will conceal the painted one and show the other one. Do not use the "eraser tool" as once you do that you can't undo it except maybe by backing up the history.
I think the rest of your restore looks good. I have a link that explains the different modes in PE: http://www.northlite.net/ps/blend.htm
Margie
Thanks for all the help Margie, I'll work on that tomorrow. :)
Yes, I was painting black to expose the faces in the background, which was the original. Because I was using the original pic, the faces were green. That is what I meant when I said the painted faces were more natural than the originals. I don't know if you remember the comments that were posted that recommended I paint the faces because they were so washed out. That's why I did that. But I get it, and will work on it.
Larry
Larry, it you paint in black you are concealing not exposing the layer below. You don't want to use your original pic, because that one was not color corrected. Just go back to the one you have color corrected, but not painted the face. I know it get confusing by using the word "paint." Perhaps the word "color" would be better and you would know that usually that means the layer mode's says "color." That way you don't destroy detail on the layer below. Yes, I remember that it was recommended to add some color to the girl's faces, because one they were blueish and very pale. However, that doesn't mean taking a paint brush and going over the face where you get rid of the texture below. There is a big difference between the two.
Margie
Hi Margie,
Here is the latest effort with the faces fixed. I had to use the black brush to conceal the face portions of the layer mask, which was the last picture I posted, overlaid over the last version with the colors of the faces fixed but not painted, otherwise the faces are unchanged and the features preserved.
I only retained a tiny bit of color by "painting" black on the layer mask at 50% because in the original picture the face on the left was blown out by the flash, and I didn't want to deviate much from that. I think the result is pleasing.
(http://i1051.photobucket.com/albums/s423/pic-dr/OPR%20pics%20working%20on/jonesk379_16_5x4-fixfaces02-16.jpg)
Larry
PS, I have corrected the hand also, I realized I missed it after seeing it in the light-box.
Hi Larry, I think this look much better. Now I think you need to upload back to your distributor and see what she thinks and then its on to QC for review.
Thanks,
Margie
Larry,
Their faces look much better now. I would do the same to the right hand of the lady in blue.
By the way, I think her left slacks probably went down a little more like Kiska had suggested.
Shujen
Thanks Shujen, I've already taken care of the hand, (see bottom of my last post) using the same technique as on the faces. I'll take another look at the jeans, although there is no real way that I'm aware of to know what they actually looked like due to the damage that obliterated that portion of the jeans.
Larry
OK, here's the latest. Please note the changes on the hand, jeans, shadows on the bottom of the jeans for separation, and shoes on the lady on the left. I am I missing anything?
(http://i1051.photobucket.com/albums/s423/pic-dr/OPR%20pics%20working%20on/jonesk379_16_5x4-fix-shoes-02-19.jpg)
Larry, I think this looks really good.
Margie
Thanks Margie, I know it was an ordeal for everyone, but I learned a lot from working on it, and future work will reflect that. Thanks to everyone for their suggestions and guidance, and I hope the family likes it :)
Larry
Nice job Larry!
Tori
Thank you Tori, and thanks to all the fantastic experts here, I'm having a wonderful time learning how to do these and hoping to get more of them back home where they belong :)