Latest Photo

[hoodman3]

I need a little direction on this one. This is a painting?!? Should I fix all the cracks? I should restore this to it's original state as a painting? All comments welcome.



Thanks,

Pete

[Mhayes]

Hi Pete,

No kidding about the cracks! What I would try is to duplicate the background and then applied a Gaussian Blue to the whole picture. Then do a layer mask concealing all and then take the paint brush (maybe at a 60% opacity) switch to white to bring back the blur on the skin area. Avoid the other areas of the face such as the eyes, mouth,  and lips. Hope that works for a quick fix.

Margie

[Hannie]

Hi Pete,

What a beauty you picked!
I think that it is a painting.  I also noticed only the white part of the painting looks cracked, so they probably used zinc white oil paint which has that tendency to to crack. 
Knowing that it still doesn't make it look right, especially in a photograph and the owners might like the crack free   ::) version better.  After all they still own the cracked version.   ;)

Hannie

PS
Great tips Margie!

[hoodman3]

Thanks for the comments Hannie & Margie.
All of the white flecks were caused by cracking. They're all over the image.
Hannie, you answered my main question and that was whether or not I should repair the cracks, leave some and just tone them down, or to just fix the white flecks and leave the cracking as if it was important to the character of the image.
I'm not too worried yet about how to fix the problems, I just wanted to know how far to go with the  restoration.

Thanks again,

Pete

[klassylady25]

Be aware Pete that the cracks may not disappear completely, but the steps that you've been given will omit a great deal of them.

Candice

[Ausimax]

Your other option Pete, is that most of the critical damage is on skin and there aren't any great colour contrasts so you could just find a good area as a reference and then heal the skin areas, then using a layer or two set to colour mode paint in the colour shading.
The hair doesn't look too bad, the drapes and dress I would just clone/heal the individual damaged spots, as the dress particularly looks like it is composed of heavy daubed paint layers and it wouldn't help to flatten that.

This is a quick fix I did in about five minutes, down and dirty but it gives you a bit of an idea of what it looks like, all very well at a low resolution, the full resolution photo may show a lot more damage.



Have fun! >:D


Max

[Tess (Tassie D)]

Max did a great quick fix there. I masked out the eyes, nose, mouth and hair then ran polaroids free dust and scratch remover and got a reasonable fix to finish off.

[schen]

If I am treating this as a painting, I will leave the crack as is and only fill in the places where the paint flakes fell off.  I believe this is the conventional restoration of oil paintings.

[klassylady25]

Shujen, I would have to agree with you. Especially from the perspective that you just wrote about.  Now it will be interesting to see what direction our artist takes it. 

[mschonher]

  I have to add my 2 cents worth in here.  This may or may not be an oil painting but if it is oil it was not painted on a canvas, IMHO, anyway.  It looks to me as if it was painted on a smooth surface, maybe Masonite that had a few heavy coats of gesso. However it was done it needs to be fixed. As for the method, I fall somewhere in between all the before said suggestions.

First I increased the size of the photo to 400 pixels to see better, then  I used the healing tool first set to "replace"  and just a few pixels in size to fill in the obvious cracks, the ones with the most contrast, but, I was careful about the placement of the colors I was stealing from as I wanted to preserve the shadows, mid tones and highlights of the face.  If you can magnify my sample you can see what I mean.  After that I began to blend the areas, again being careful about the shadows etc. but this time I used the healing tool set to "normal'  After I blended I merged the layers then I went back on a new layer set to color mode and replaced some of the pink on her cheek and temple, I blurred that a bit and merged the layers.  I then duped the background 2 times, set the top one to "screen" at about 26% to strengthen the light above her brow bone and under they eye a tad, and the bottom one to "multiply" to add a bit of depth to the shadow on the side of the cheek area.

Good luck with this one it is a real beauty.

Mary

[Mhayes]

I had the very good fortune today to speak to Debbie, the owner of the photo, as to the level of restoration needed on this photo. She would very much like to have all of the cracks removed! These cracks were caused by Katrina and water damage and yes it is a painting. I also sent her a link to this post as I think she will be thrilled to see the discussion. She is so pleased that we are helping them in restoring their photos. Some of their old photos were the only ones left of their relatives. They are slowly getting their lives back together and are rebuilding in the same area--Diamond Head--but at a higher level.

Mary, I love what you have done with the skin. Thanks everyone for a much appreciated effort!

Margie

[Mhayes]

I thought you would like to read Debbie's email to all of us:

"The picture is an old oil on canvas done approximately 1910-1920 and prior to the hurricane and it getting wet had no cracks.. It was a pleasure talking to you.  We are so excited to think we might be able to see the picture intact again.  Thank you everyone for all your hard work on our behalf."

Debb and Max, we are all so happy that we could help!

Margie

[mschonher]

Margie, how wonderful that you were able to speak to the owner of this painting.  So it is an oil after all.  I could not see any canvas-like texture on what I downloaded but then the dpi was only 100.  It is extraordinarily smooth for an oil, at least as far as I could tell and it looks well executed. It is a beautiful and theatrical looking work and I would love to know some of the history behind this one.

[hoodman3]

Margie,

Thanks for contacting the owners. It reassures me that I'm on the right track.
Mary, I can't see too much canvas texture either, but I will preserve the noise that's there. The final image is 12 x 15.
I'll post when I get closer.

Thanks,

Pete