I am worn out - help please!

[cwalker]

Hi Everyone,  this is my first time posting to the forum and my 4th restoration. 
This poor girl is gonna be an old woman with GREY hair by the time I get done with her...or maybe I will be for sure!

This is my 3rd attempt at this one.  I've left the obvious mottled arm and "painted on hair look" so you can see what Im up against.  Not to mention the bazillion orange dots throughout.  I tried the approach that I read about here in the forum (replacing the blue channel or whichever with the Lightness channel in LAB but it didnt work or I didnt do it right - which is entirely possible  :D

It's been too long that I've worked on this one  HELP!

Claire in San Diego

[Mike S.]

Hi Claire,

Can you post your original picture and your work in progress?  That way we can get an idea of what you are up against.

Thank you,

Mike

[cwalker]

I sure tried!  i posted the links to each to Flickr according to Tess' directions,  because I can't figure out how to get them "within" the post.  Should I try Photobucket?

[cwalker]

[Mhayes]

Hi Worn Out Claire,

Great to see you posting on the forum. I think you are off to a great start, but wonder what your method of choice is for restoring? I am guessing the clone tool? If I was working on this photo from this point I would be do layers and masks.  For the hair where you have the painted look, I would take the lasso tool and pick and area that would come close to the damaged area. Once I lassoed that area I would hit Crtl or Cmd J to put that selection in the layer above. You can then move, rotate, scale to move into place. Also, when you use the lasso feather it 2 pix. You can do a layer mask so that you can keep what you want and conceal what you don't. Once you get what you like, you can merge down.

The other tool I would use would be the patch tool to even out areas in the skin that look splotchy. I would take care of the splotches and maybe duplicate a layer and do a blur, conceal all and then brush back in at a low opacity. The patch tool would also be a good choice to even out the spotting on the background.

When posting your photos to the forum, Photobucket is the better choice. On your first post, I could click on the x and go to Flckr's site, but that makes it hard to compare and Flckr doesnpt  allow a volunteer to copy and download to their computer to view or work.

Hope that helps.

Margie

[Pat]

Welcome to the forum Claire!  You have really picked a toughie; I would have put this in the difficult category rather than moderate.  It's hard to get a really good color correction on a photo with such extensive damage.  I wonder if the blue background seen on the right side of the photo after color correction (see below) is caused by damage, and selecting from the left side of the photo would give you a more accurate color for your background restore?



Pat

[cwalker]

Thanks guys! I will keep going and appreciate your suggestions, they do help.  Stay tuned! 

Claire

ps I am sick of the olan mills logo!

[Hannie]

Hi Claire,

This photo has been finished and sent home months ago.  It is a great photo for practice but like Pat said already, it is very difficult!

Just to help you on the way what we are aiming for this was the end result:



Hannie

[cwalker]

Thanks for showing me and letting me know!  Comparing to the end result..I wasnt too far off!

Claire  :up2: