Advice needed on technique

[brian]

Original



WIP

]




I would appreciate input on this restore.   Here is what I have done so far
.

First I split the channels and decided blue was the best though lots of damage. 
Pasting the blue channel on top of the original, cloning was not giving much color data.  I then decided to repair the blue channel as a b&w and later colorize.
In the repair there are problems with the man's face on the right.  Having never colorized, I searched for info on OPR and decided to give it a try.
1 Selected good color data from original with the eye dropper.
2.Brushed the color on selected parts of the image,
3,Found the color to be too light; it blended in still looking more like a b&w image.
  4,  Blended my own custom colors and found
the result to lack texture – looked painted.

I recall a post in my searches from Margie saying a background too light or dark will not colorize well.  Is this my situation?

What I show as a WIP does not include the colorization attempt, as the colorization was barely  visible so I deleted it in disgust.

Brian

[Bambi]

Hi, Brian:

I've done a few of the Seigenthaler photos and I can tell you what I would do. The beauty of Photoshop is everyone has a different way of doing things. Here's mine.

Copy the Blue Channel and paste it into a New Layer. Set the Blend to Luminosity. Add a Layer Mask. Paint out everything in the Blue Channel Luminosity Layer except the faces. Adjust the Opacity of the Layer until you have best detail/least damage. That gives you detail in the faces.

You have plenty of good flesh tones in both faces and arms. With the Eyedropper, select a color from an undamaged part of the face. Paint over the face with that Color with Replacement Color Brush. That will even out the fleshtones, which makes it possible to painstakingly use the Healing and Clone tools to even out the damage without crazy color shifts. (Be careful not to remove all the shadows or you change tho look of the faces.)

Also use the Color Replacement Brush on the shirts, pants and background. That's not the end, by far, but those are the next steps I've used when faced with the Seigenthaler photos. One step at a time. I admire your perseverance.

Bambi

[Mhayes]

Hi Brian,

I agree with Bambi that the beauty of PhotoShop is that there are many different ways to go about this. I did a quick try at it and I found the blue channel the best and used that channel from the b/w and then as a duplicate copy I went with the default and combined the two and used layer masks to take the best of both. I think you did a great job on the man's shirt on your right. What I would work on would be the men's faces so that they are more even in texture. On the pants, look at the the blue channel and see how the creases in the pants look. You want the man on your left to have more opening between the pants legs.

Here is a quick and dirty, but wanted to show some of the texture in the faces. Wish I had done more work on the pants as there looks like a tree root with the damage.  :)




Kudos to you for trying this one. Look forwad to seeing how you progress.

Mar

[Hannie]

Hi Brian,

What if you lighten the B/W layer before pasting it as a luminosity layer?
(I used Image->Adjustments->Shadows/Highlights)



Hannie