Spotty Face and Filmy Hair

[bmalloy]

I'm stuck on this little Pumpkin Boy, a bit more difficult than others I've done in the past. As you can see, there's been a lot of progress, but I can't get the dots and too-dark look out of the facial contours and shadows without losing detail

And there's a filmy texture on the hair, with too little left to find anything clean to clone from. I'm terrible at drawing and don't want to go there if there's any other option.

Can anyone suggest some things to try?

[Mhayes]

Hi BMalloy,

Great job on getting the red eye out. There are several things that could help you on this photo. Are you comfortable doing layer masks? Hopefully you are because that will help you the most. On the hair, I would make a selection of the baby's hair that I thought would work on your right side. I would have a feather of 2 pix and then copy my selection to its own layer. Then with the move tool I would move my selection into place. You will need to transform your selection, which will allow you to rotate or size as needed. The nice thing about a layer mask is that you can conceal all of your selection and then paint back in what looks good. Make a mistake and you can change your brush to conceal and start over. When done merge down and keep working section by section. You could lighten the baby by duplicating your layer and changing your mode to Screen and then lowering the opacity. Once again a layer mask will help you do that blend on only the areas needed. Should you want to add a little more color to the baby's face you could add a new layer and change the blend to color. Pick a subtle pink and with the opacity really low, paint in some color with a soft brush. Also, dupicate your background for the working copy.

Make sure that you remove all personal info from your photo before posting. In Photoshop go to File>File Info and remove all personal info. The photo that you upload back needs to have that information, but not on what you post to the forum.

Good luck as you are making good progress!

Margie

[schen]

BMalloy,

You had a good start on this restoration.

I think the right shoulder of the baby might be much higher:

[lurch]

Hi Bmalloy,

You've made a really good start on this restoration, but I do have a couple of nits to pick. One is the schmutz on the little boy's right wristband. The red channel is good for a lot of shirt detail, including that wristband.  Colors could use a little less saturation, especially the pumpkin. There's still a lot of grunge on his face, but I assume that will go away as you progress.

As far as the hair goes, it looks fine to me in the original. I think taking some cyan out of that part would make the "film" better.

With its different areas of different damage, this is not a trivial restoration. You're to be commended for taking it on.