• Welcome to Operation Photo Rescue's Online Community.
 

Maintaining texture on faces

Started by glennab, July 05, 2006, 02:17:39 PM

Previous topic - Next topic

Ausimax

This is a problem I have been having, I am waiting for some easy photo in Mikes gallery, in the meantime I am restoring a photo for a friend, unfortunately there are only about 3 small spots on the whole skin area with undamaged texture. When you clone continuously from these spots the skin texture doesn't seem to maintain well and combined with the colour differences it gives the image a flat, painted look, and the more you try to improve it with cloning,healing tool or airbrushing the less you seem to achieve, any other tip/tricks would be welcome, as unfortunately I am not very PS literate.

Max
Wisdom is having a well considered opinion .... and being smart enough to keep it to yourself!     MJS

"Life" is what happens while you are planning other things!

cmpentecost

Could you post the photo for us to see?  This might help in giving you suggestions.  Thanks.

Christine

Ausimax

Hi,

These are the Original and present state of repair, it is still a work in progress, In the hi-res original image the only clean textured skin is above the left eyebrow and in the shiny part to the left. the hair has been completely remade using Russell Browns hair brushes.







Any comments and tips welcome.

Max
Wisdom is having a well considered opinion .... and being smart enough to keep it to yourself!     MJS

"Life" is what happens while you are planning other things!

vhansen

#18
Maybe a close up of the skin is needed, as looking at the original posted, it looks like there is actually plenty of usable skin area.  It looks as though you've put a great deal of work into this, and pretty much reworked the entire image.  However, it looks like a painting.  Part of the reason may be that the clone tool doesn't maintain the texture as well as the healing brush. I'm not sure if you have the healing brush available, but if you do, I would use that instead of the clone tool, as there doesn't appear to be any texture to the skin.
Here is how an quick rework using the healing brush on the skin.
The "upload" folder is full so here's a link:
http://www.pbase.com/vhansen/image/63814904

Ausimax

Hi vhansen,

Thanks for your help, the healing brush seems to be doing a much better job, will have another go at the whole image, all good practise, and already I've learnt something!

Here is where I had got to with the other one, a little better I think buy still lacking that natural look.



Thanks again,

Max
Wisdom is having a well considered opinion .... and being smart enough to keep it to yourself!     MJS

"Life" is what happens while you are planning other things!

glennab

Hi Max

I've gone through the same challenge with my first difficult restoration.  I redid it three times before I got rid of the "painterly" look.  What I did was use the patch and clone tools, but only on extremely small contiguous areas, which helped preserve the texture and the color.

One thing I also found helpful was to do any cloning on a separate layer, with "use all layers" selected.  Then anything I wasn't happy with, I could delete, reduce the opacity, add grain or whatever I felt would work without affecting the primary layer.  And I didn't try to get rid of all the imperfections this time, which was one of my mistakes the first go-round.  Many of the techniques I used were ones I picked up from this forum.

I think you could make her hair more natural looking by going back to the original (and this is another great tip I got from this group), using the smudge tool set to 1 or 2 px  and about 80-85% opacity and pull the damaged areas in the direction you think the hair should go.  Tedious, but it works great.  My guy's hair was non-existent, so I also used the brush tool at 1-2px and added a couple of colors, brushing in the direction the hair should go and then blended it all with the smudge tool.

There are several Photoshop filter plug-ins that may be helpful, but I haven't used them yet.  I'll let you know if any are worthwhile.

My best to you,

GG

What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal. ~Albert Pine

(Photoshop CS5 /Mac Pro)

vhansen

#21
One more tip: The side of her cheek does not look like the original (the shadow is lost) and is much lighter.  This tip may seem like too much work, but it will give you better results.

Layer your version over the original. Add a layer mask, and fill it with black paint (to hide your version). You should now be seeing your original. Paint on the layer mask (attached to your rework) with WHITE paint wherever you see blemishes. What you are doing is using your fixed version to repair JUST the damaged areas. 

If you've done a good job on the repairs, you will have a great restoration (without a painted appearance) however, if you've smoothed out the grain, (too much painterly effect) or lightened and darkened, or changed features, you will notice that right away. This is really a great way to check your work.

Oops, one more tip:  A grainy photograph is always better than a "clean" painterly image.  Most of the grain you see while working at the zoomed image will not be as obvious when printed.  To help retain the grain/noise, only use the healing brush, and save the clone tool for very small tight areas or along edges. Blurring, smudging, and any type of "global" effects should not be used.

Ausimax

Hi,

The latest effort, may not be great, but I think it looks a lot better, the subject loves it, so I suppose that is something.

Thanks to all of you for your gracious help, it is much appreciated.




Max
Wisdom is having a well considered opinion .... and being smart enough to keep it to yourself!     MJS

"Life" is what happens while you are planning other things!

Peter_AUS

Max I think it is better than your first posting.
Regards,

Peter

vhansen

Now it looks like a photo! Much better.

glennab

Hi Max

Nice work!  Quite a difference on the second effort.  What techniques worked best for you to get those results?

GG
What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal. ~Albert Pine

(Photoshop CS5 /Mac Pro)

Ausimax

Hi All.

Thank you for your comments, though the credit goes to you, who got me on the right track.

glennab,

Mostly all done with the healing brush and the clone tool, used the clone mainly to average out areas of colour and then the healing brush to give it back texture, on the face mainly the healing brush working out from small areas of good skin texture.

The hair was still a problem, despite how it looks in the original low-res image, there was little detail that was not damaged, I managed to clone some in the front centre, however most of the top and both sides I had to paint in with the Russell Brown hair brushes to give it form and detail, far from perfect, but better than I could achieve buy any other method.

Thanks for all your help, and don't go away, I'll probably need heaps more! I have just applied for two of Mikes difficult ones, need my head read I think.

Max
Wisdom is having a well considered opinion .... and being smart enough to keep it to yourself!     MJS

"Life" is what happens while you are planning other things!

paula

Can you tell me where you found the Russell Brown hair brushes ?

pcraft

Hi Paula....   Here's the link to Russell's Tips...  You'll have to scroll down until you find, "Creating Digital Hair"

http://www.russellbrown.com/tips_tech.html

paula

:'( I am devastated!  Those wonderful brushes are for CS2 and I have photoshop7.  Really great tutorials for anyone with CS2 who is dealing with hair. Thank you for the link anyway. :'(