Yes, this is the same image that you saw about a month ago, only this one is horizontal! That's right, one vertical and one horizontal - I got to restore this image twice. I think I've been working on it for months :D. Interestingly, the horizontal image was sharper, dirtier, and stained. The vertical one has already passed approval, please take a look at this one:
Original, only lightened a bit so you can see it better:
(http://i1086.photobucket.com/albums/j442/PhotoBob63/ShepherdB21_11_5x3pt5_originallightened.jpg)
Here's where I'm at:
(http://i1086.photobucket.com/albums/j442/PhotoBob63/ShepherdB21_11_5x3pt5_retouch.jpg)
Let me know what I can do to improve it. Thank you :)
Bob
Hi Bob,
You probably feel like you got to know the people on this photo after restoring the scene from different angles!
Great job, nice colors. Nothing to add really but if you feel like experimenting it can be fun to look at the channels and pick one to use in a soft light mode as an overlay to bring out a little more contrast. I do that sometimes but not if it goes at the expense of detail. Here I used the green channel at about 30% opacity.
Hannie
(http://i210.photobucket.com/albums/bb18/marijtje2/OPR/greenchannel.jpg)
That looks nice Hannie, I'll play with that when I get home from work tonight. Thanks :up:
Bob
Hannie,
Would you mind explaining in a little more detail the overlay/soft light/green channel thingy?
Thanks,
Mary
Mary, I think with the difference in time zones, Hannie has probably gone to bed and I will let her explain more about her method. This is really a neat trick and I really didn't consider picking the best channel. Something similar is what I learend from Katrin Eismann's book on Photoshop Restoration & Retouching page on page 61 Titled "Using Luminosity and Blending Modes to Add Visual Snap." Like Hannie had mentioned, you have to be careful in how you use it. Here are the steps for using RGB in the channels and will let Hannie explain more how she went with the individual channel. I have used this in photography on occasions.
1. I usually duplicate the layer to be safe.
2. Go into the channels palette and Cmd (Mac) or Ctrl (PC) click on the RGB channel.
3. Duplicate the later by doing a Cmd/Ctrl-J and going back to your layers palette.
4. In the blending mode pick Overlay or Soft Light---I usually like Soft Light the best
5. Adjust your opacity to where it looks best.
It has been awhile since I looked at Katrin's instructions and I noticed that she may duplicate the layer several times. I like that it makes the photo pop, but you can go overboard on this.
Hannie, your version looks great and Bob you did a great color correction and restoring.
Margie
Thank you Margie. I used Hannie's correction and ended up going a little less on the opacity. I was loosing highlight detail that I've fought so hard to keep! So here's what I did:
Went to the channels panel - red is contrasty as heck, blue is where all the crud was so it's choppy, but the green channel is fairly smooth and even, like a nice gray-scale of the image. Click on the green Channel, Control-A to select it, then Control-C to copy.
Go to the layers panel and create a new layer. Set its mode to "Soft Light". Control-V to paste the green channel into the new layer. The image will look too contrasty - bring the opacity down to 20% - 30%. On my image I ended up with 18%. There you have it.
Hannie I hope I explained it right :halo:
Bob
Couldn't have explained it better myself!
The only thing I want to add is, don't let the crud in the Blue Channel put you off using it, it'll have a great result as well. Try all channels and at different opacity, just for fun. Keep an eye out so there is no loss of detail in the dark/light areas.
This method does not always work but when a photo is a little low on contrast and blurry it can brighten it up some.
I learned this method from Kiska!
Hannie
Thanks to you all. Looks like a cool trick and I look forward to using it.
Mary