Blue Channel Rescue

[Memory_Restorer]

This is my first restoration, and I'm really excited to be here!  Unfortunately, I've reached a bit of an impasse, so I thought I would see if I can get some feedback.  The big problem I'm concerned with is the big yellow/red splotch in the top left corner.  I was able to pull details for the lamp and window from the blue channel, but now I've lost most of the color information.  I was able to restore the color to the wood paneling, but I haven't been able to find a color that looks natural on the lamp or window.  :/  Any advice would be greatly appreciated.  (I've supplied the original as well, for reference.)

Obviously, any other critiques would also be welcome.  :)

Original


My restoration so far

[glennab]

Hi M-R

Nice restore.  I only see a couple of things that I'd revisit.  The light pants are rather splotchy.  I think I'd smooth them out a little more. 

It may not be important, but the lamp shade looks like it's pleated (check the left side).  I don't know if it's worth it to try to pull that out or not.  The drapes also look splotchy. That may be because of the light coming in from behind them.  Maybe someone else can jump in on that.

There's a small area on the drapes just under where the big spot of damage was - it's a cream color.  My guess is that's the original color of the drapes.  I have a feeling that if you give the drapes a cream tint the splotches may become more evident.  Not many lamp shades are pure white, so I'd also  tint that an off-white to cream.

Cheers

GK

[Memory_Restorer]

The pants thing I can definitely fix, but I can't seem to figure out how to pull out the cream color over the curtain texture.  The technique I'm using right now is to color on a layer that is set "Color".  It worked find for the wood paneling, but on the curtain it makes a really awkward either blue or green pastel color that is definitely not attractive or natural.  :/

As for the pleating on the lamp, I think it might make more sense, at this juncture, to just find a similar lampshade from a similar angle and paste it in, now that I can see what it's supposed to look like.  There have got to be about a million and one pictures of lampshades similar to that one that I could use... 

I'm just nervous about that, because it's really hard to make patchwork look as good as restoring the original, and there's so much of the original texture left.  Oh well.  Guess I'll just keep fiddling with it for now.

[Hannie]

Great repair job Memory_Restorer!
When you sample the cream color it may at first look greenish and not right but after you use it on your color layer over the entire curtain it will come out right.  You can always vary the opacity of your layer if it is too much.

Some time a go a volunteer had a great tip for cleaning up curtains (works on lampshades too) by the use of motion blur.
http://www.operationphotorescue.org/forum/index.php/topic,3083.0.html
It works really well and saves a lot of work!  If you are not sure how to use it I can explain further.

One more thing, when you post the original photo on the forum it is very important thatany information of the owner is removed.  This link will explain how:
http://www.operationphotorescue.org/forum/index.php/topic,2002.0.html

Hannie

[Memory_Restorer]

Hannie,

Thanks for the tips about posting photos.  I'll keep that in mind for the next time.  There's a lot of "new" to take in here, but you won't have to tell me twice!

As for the motion blur, I'll keep that in mind as a possibility.  As long as it's not overused, I imagine it could be very useful.  Your version certainly looks great! 

Trusting that sickly green color didn't help, though.  I sampled from as many places as possible, including zooming in to see the exact pixel I was sampling, and no go.  None of the colors I could sample looked anything remotely pleasant on a "color" layer.  In the end, I solved the problem by choosing an entirely unrelated light gray that I think works a lot better.  I'm going to do some more work to smooth out those splotches and work on the lamp tonight, and we'll see how it goes.  :)

Thanks for the help!