I was able to keep the detail in my last repair except for the groom's hair. None of the brushes I tried seemed to help, those showing promise required that I paint a number of parallel arcs and required steadier hands than I have.
One site I checked by using a brush to burn in the direction of hair so I thought to try that approach but avoid the need to paint freehand.
I have mentioned Mehdi Grain Natural before and it allows some very distorted grain to be produced. On a new layer filled 50% grey and grain applied with size 1, strength 50 and size –100 the new layer looks like the following
(http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s145/atholg/Rawgrainlayer.jpg)
I reduced its opacity to 20% so I could see the hair below and used Rotate and Warp to follow what I could see of the original hair.
(http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s145/atholg/Grainlayer.jpg)
Switched the layer to Soft Light and adjusted Opacity to suit, before and after follow.
(http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s145/atholg/untreated.jpg)
(http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s145/atholg/treated.jpg)
Mehdi Grain Filler is a free download, just Google it
Athol
Pretty nifty Athol :up2: Thanks.
Pat
Nice idea, Athol :)!
I thought about how to emulate this without any plugins and I think I came up with a nice way :-).
First create a new gradient fill. Set it to "Linear" and click on the gradient. Now chose "Noise" as your gradient type, set the "Roughness" to 100%, color model to "HSB", saturation to 0% and cut the brightness a little from both sides. It's also important to have "Restrict colors" checked.
Now hit "Randomize" until you're satisfied with the results and you should be off with something like in your example :-).
(http://www.abload.de/img/haironyij.jpg)
Fascinating! It's always interesting to see so many ways to approach an issue in Photoshop. I love the "techy" ideas like these. Thanks Athol and Jonas.
Bambi
Because OPR has such generous volunteers like Athol, Jonas, and many others willing to share tips and techniques with the rest of us, this forum is a wonderful learning tool. It really raises the bar in regards to the quality of the restorations we are able to return to the families who have entrusted their memories to us.
Pat
Athol and Jonas, this is great to see two different ways of doing something and neither would I have come up with on my own. Can't wait to experiment.
Thanks for sharing!
Margie
Glad you found it interesting
Jonas, as usual there is a way of doing most things in PS and I haven't tried the noise option before. Good idea. I am inclined to think that because the Mehdi approach produces lines that vary in width over their length so it ought to provide a little more variation. Of course, whether you can see it in the final result is the question.
I have re-posted NewbyK10-2 with the updated hair
Athol
Love this topic, the hair repair method reminds a little of this one by Kevin:
http://www.operationphotorescue.org/forum/index.php/topic,3083.0.html (http://www.operationphotorescue.org/forum/index.php/topic,3083.0.html)
Hannie
Athol, you're right at first I didn't notice that the lines differ in width!
However Hannie's link gave me another idea :-).
You could set up a new layer filled with 50% gray, add some noise to it (quite a lot of noise actually, I'd go with a minimum of 25% monochromatic Gaussian distributed) and use the motion blur filter on this.
Downside is that you have to make a selection around the middle because the edges will bleed a little. Alternatively you could use free transform to stretch and scale it, which might actually work better.
If it's too soft, you can also use Brightness/Contrast to enhance the contrast of it :-).
I just love, how many possibilities there are to do the most simple things sometimes ;)!
Thanks for the link Hannie.
I didn't think to mention that by setting size to maximum the same software produces a fairly respectable curtain. The shape/position of the folds depend on the seed value used by the generator and you have the option to change it randomly until you get something appropriate. Of course you can crop/stretch the result to your taste
Thanks Jonas, I will give that a go. Remembering all to possibilities is the problem these days!
Athol
(http://i151.photobucket.com/albums/s145/atholg/curtain.jpg)
Thanks for the info, Athol & Jonas. I tried both tips & I'm sure I will be using them in the future.
Athol, do you have more practical tips using other Mehdi filters --- or other free filters?
TIA
bj
Hi bj
I had a look at most of his filters some years ago, most seem to oriented towards "special effects" rather than restoration. I have tried his noise filters but I had better ones.
You didn't star in MASH by any chance, did you ;)
Athol