A Marathon ... tell me what you think.

[decman55]

Whew.  Okay, this one has been a marathon.  It didn't look that difficult until I got it downloaded.  There were LOTS of faces with damage, and several that were obliterated.

Anyway, here is the original:



And here is my final (maybe) version:



What does it need?

- David Crawford

[Johnboy]

Hi David,

I am not sure how you adjusted your color because in Levels things in the original look pretty balanced to me. What I am looking at is the hard specular reflections off the heads. It looks a little hotter in the restore than in the original. Number 88 caught my eye at first but I think there is a lot of specular coming off that boy's head. At first I wasn't sure if that wasn't damage. But looking at the original there is more hair there than seen in the restore. Also there doesn't seem to be much separation between the sky and the heads that meet the sky area. This is a late morning or early afternoon shot if not close to noon by the length of the shadows and the team is facing away from the sun. Unless the sky had some high thin clouds there needs to be more separation between the sky and some of the heads. To me the sky looks too blown out (too close to white). I would suggest knocking down some of the contrast. You might try going back to the original and adding a Levels adjustment layer if one is not already there and on the combined RGB channel move the grey point slider slightly to the left taking into account the whole photo. Lighten the faces just a little. You can do this on the restored photo too just move the grey slider to the right to darken it. Since they are all sitting in shadow you will never get a photo that looks like they are facing the sun. Unfortunately some of the faces are already being lost in the shadow even in the original.

Hope this helps some.

Johnboy

[glennab]

Hi David

I used the sample droppers in Curves as a test, and the sky turned a bit bluer.  I'm wondering if the patch of blue over the boy in the back who's fourth from the right as we look at them might be the actual sky color rather than an anomaly.  Sampling didn't make the sky anywhere near that shade of blue, but if you zoom in on that youngster, the blue blends perfectly with the other colors in that portion of the photo.

As an option, I think I'd sample that blue and blend it into the gray color that's there now.  It would give you a gradient of sorts if you masked the sky and used a blend mode to incorporate the color into the photo - possibly producing a pretty decent sky.

Before I did that, I'd color correct the rest of the photo and get everything else as close to optimal as I could.

This is not to negate JB's suggestions, as he's a sharp cookie. Just a thought from someone who tends to often think WAY outside the box.

Good luck.

GK