Sailor

[mschonher]

Hannie, I like your jawline and that you lightened up smile lines around the nose and mouth.  Being so young they would be much less prominent.  I think the ears are a tad to small and the nose could be a bit wider.

Mary

[klassylady25]

Back to the drawing board.  Thanks

[klassylady25]

 :up:

[mschonher]

Johnboy, here is a tut on the method I spoke of earlier in this thread.  I hope this helps you and anyone else who is struggling with faces.  I've rewritten this 3 times but I'm sure I've left something out. LOL, even though I tried not to.

 This technique comes from my experimentation with the badly damaged photos of OPR, but also from the perspective of an oil painter.  So here goes.

PREPARATION:

I'm assuming you're using a graphic tablet and pen.

If your photo has an odd color cast fix that first. There is no need to keep repeating that bad color.

If you need to see the features more clearly do a layers adjustment to make things easier for you.  

Set the healing brush to  57% hardness and the spacing to 40%.

Double the size of your photo, I usually go from 300 pixels to 600, so I can see more detail.  I also use the full screen mode with tool bar and zoom in and out quite frequently to make sure I'm not loosing any information especially in the dark and medium areas.  Otherwise the face will appear flat.

I always do the background first.  This sets the tone of the finished photograph for me.  I'm sure this is from my oil painting background, but it makes perfect sense to me.  Doing the background first will also help you get a feel for the technique and it is good practice before you tackle the face.  I stop the background work as I near the face, head and clothing so that I don't get the awful healing brush blur, which by the way we use to our advantage later on.

FILLING:

When stealing or sampling colors, take them from the nearby clean areas using the "replace" mode of the healing brush.

Take into consideration the shape of the damage.  If it is roundish in shape then sample from all around the damage, working your way into the damaged area to erase it.  If the damage is vertical or horizontal then sample from either side of the damage.

 Don't get stuck on just one color, keep the cursor moving around.  The more colors and tones the better.  If a color looks strange to you, zoom out and take a good look at the photo.  Grayish green, blues and purples are very common colors for shading flesh tones.  It will all blend together later.  



For filling in with a paint brush, use the softest setting which would be 0 and use a good strong opacity, I usually use 65% and up for this.  Again you will be sampling colors as mentioned above.

BLENDING:

Never blend on an area that you've painted on.  It will look awful. I merge the layers and start a new one for the blend.

Using the healing brush set to "normal", I place my cursor right up to the filled area and using small circular motions with the pen I begin to blend the filled areas. This can take some time so be patient with yourself.  You might see tracks and that's normal, but you have to work them out a little at a time.  Keep zooming in and out to check yourself. keep the cursor small.

Once that area is fixed you will need to blend it into the surrounding areas.  You will be striving for a smooth transition from one area to another.  By placing your cursor into a medium toned area and working in a circular motion into a lighter area the colors should blend beautifully.  Sometimes you have to play around with the placement of the cursor.  It might work better in some instances if you placed the cursor in the medium area and blended into either the dark or light areas. You have to experiment a little to get the effect you want.  Are you good and confused?  It really is easier than it sounds. You will always be blending the tones together, lights into the middle tones, the middle tones into the light, the middle tones into the dark and the dark tones into the middle tones. Working back a forth until it's beautiful.

If any of you have questions, feel free to ask away, I don't mind at all.  I sincerely hope this helps someone. I hope I was clear.

Mary   :hug:

[Johnboy]

Mary,

Thanks for the tut. I have done a lot in past restorations with the healing brush. Even trying to smooth out areas by selecting larger areas. A lot of the time I go back & forth in History to see what the effect is. If I like it I keep it. If not, I go back to a previous point and start over. Unfortunately I don't have a graphics tablet and pen. Probably need to look into that in the future. I will save the tut though for future use. Thanks again.

Johnboy

[mschonher]

Well there you go Johnboy, you're already ahead of the game. I had a wacom graphire for the longest time and it still works great.  I bet you can get a good deal at Amazon.com.

Mary

[klassylady25]

 :)

[mschonher]

Sorry about that Candy, I must not have been clear.  What part do you not understand?

Mary

[klassylady25]

 

Thanks for the extra note Mary. I believe I've got it.   
Heading to bed but this is as it stands.

[Hannie]

Hi Candy,

I ruined your beautiful restoration trying to change his mouth.  In the process I completely blackened his teeth as well  ::)
I was trying to give his mouth that is a little fuller, almost like a young Tony Curtis, not quite like Elvis or Ricky Nelson.  But it didn't work.  I do think his mouth is fuller though!
I like how you changed the background, looks really good!

:loveit:

Hannie

[klassylady25]

I know that you have access to the original so with that being said, look at it and overlay the one I posted this last time.  I'm posting the lips and I've used a multiply and overlay just to bring them out.   I appreciate your work.  This guy has been a step by step process.  The background was made by using the suggestion that Mary posted as well as the face. 

Today is grandson day, so I'll check off and on for what you have to say. 

[Hannie]

Candy, I think you make your own improvements just fine!
Your multiply image really shows the shape of the mouth well, it is a puzzle to me, it looks the same size but when I look at the full image it seems bigger.
I see what you mean with the ears but I think you are right about the size. The right ear just looks bigger because it is a little closer to the camera, his right shoulder leans forward some.

Have a fun day with your grandson!

:hug:

Hannie

[mschonher]

Hi Candy,

Hannie is right, you can do it yourself.  You have done an amazing job on a very difficult photo.  I don't ever want to discourage you from doing it yourself but I also know you are hungry to learn and that is why I get involved.  We all struggle with faces.

Ears are so difficult because you have to tie them in to the face and hairline.  I always do them last because I hate doing them at all. I've tried to show you on the right ear how the shape should go, but you could steal the left ear and tweek it with the warp tool to fit it in there.  BTW, you have done a super job on the inside of that left ear.

I also duped the image and changed the mode to multiply, set the opacity to 30%,  I purposely made it dark so you could see where some of the shading would go. You could strengthen any area you wanted to with this method and it gives you lots of control.

Keep going girlfriend, you are just about there.  Just needs a little fine tuning.

[Mhayes]

Hi Candy and everyone working on this photo. I was hoping to get an email from the sailor's son, but unfortunately he has been out of town since Thursday. I did reach him by phone this evening and he said while staying at the hotel, he had a chance to go on line and look at the progress. There were a couple that he thought looked close, but he doesn't remember which ones and won't be home until Monday. He also offered another reference that was 5 years older, but he said his father looked a little different in it because of injuries he suffered. I would put this on the backburner until we hear more from him. He did say that his father had noticeable wavy hair. Thanks as this has not been an easy photo to restore, but it is very much appreciated by his family.

Margie

[glennab]

Hi!

I have a couple of comments on this project.  Candy, you've taken our advice and observations with your usual grace, and I have to say again how awesome it is that you take so much care in your restorations of our beloved military people.  This is such a dedicated team effort that it reinforces my pride in being part of OPR. I'm excited that we have contact with the gentleman's son, so we can truly do him justice.  It's painful to learn that he was injured after this photo was taken.

Mary, your blending tutorial is a gem!  I have it stashed away with the rest of the "helpful hints" in my OPR treasures folder.  I'm remembering a discussion we had a while back about your reasons for not being a regular on the forum.  Now that you've changed your mind, you've given us such a wealth of information from your art perspective.  And obviously you're making good use of your new Mac, because you've mastered tools that I've barely touched.  I certainly appreciate the wisdom you share!

Have a wonderful Sunday!  Hugs

G