Kerry's First Restoration

[Kerry]

Hi All,

This is my first restoration and having read the rules I am very leery of over correcting an image.  Would you please take a look and tell me if I've done enough, not enough, or gone too far already?

Thank you very much!  All feedback is appreciated.

Kerry   :)

Original


Finished?

[glennab]

Hi Kerry

You picked a toughie for your first restoration!  I think you've made a great start, but I'd do a little refining.  There are a few places on the people that look obviously cloned to me (the man's forehead on the right as we look at him), and his shirt.

I'd try to pull up a little more of the look of the trees.  Maybe keep some of the open areas of lightness that are apparent in the original and try to retain some "leafy" texture if it's at all visible.

Here's something to try: go to your original, duplicate the layer, and play with the layer properties.  Sometimes that'll pull up details that you wouldn't otherwise see.  You can also use channels to pull out details, but since I'm "channel-challenged" I'll leave that to you to experiment with or maybe someone else can give you more specific techniques.

I'd also try to smooth the transition between the car and the background.

You've got a good handle on not over-restoring the people.  I've had a lot of difficulty with that and ended up with "paintings," and "back to the drawing board!" I'd say you're ahead of the game there.

You'll probably get more feedback from the true gurus on the forum and they might be able to be more specific.  I have OLD eyes, and it's hard for me to see a lot of the detail, but I'd say you're definitely on your way with this one.  Just needs some polish.

Have a wonderful day!

GG

[Kenny]

Hi Kerry.

I feel the background could use some more work, solely because the damage pulls the focus away from the couple. I played with the image a bit and if you use the burn tool set to 50 percent exposure and the range set on highlights, it will really help with those washed out spots. The left side of the picture is especially washed out and burning really helped it in my opinion. I also burned the car windows somewhat to darken them as well.

Anyway, just a suggestion. Try it and see how it looks to you .


Kenny :)

[Kerry]

Thank you both for your replies, you each had a great ideas!

GG: Thanks for pointing out where I need better cloning and smoothing the car to background.  I've been looking at this for so long I lost sight.  :)

Kenny: I have been agonizing over how to get rid of all that noise without using noise removal as the high res of this is already so blurry.  I honestly smacked my forehead and said duh when you suggested burning.  Thank you, thank you!

[Ausimax]

Kerry,

You picked yourself a beauty, there is so little detail in it it would be hard to do much with it, if it weren't basically against the rules the best way would be to cut out the people and the car and insert a similar new background, though a clean new background would be hard to blend with what in the best case, is going to be degraded images of the people.

So in this case I think you can only blur the background and do your best effort on the people, who are after all what the image is all about, not much help but them's my thoughts.

Max

[Kerry]

Thanks Max, I agree and tried to do just that (see result below).  I'm sure it's been said before but those thumbnails sure are misleading. :P 

Any opinions on this current version?  I wish desperately to sharpen this image, but I'm such a rule follower, sigh.



Kerry

[Ausimax]

Hi Kerry,

I think you have gone about as far as you can go with this one, they will sharpen and colour correct to suit their print process so rest easy in the knowledge that it will look better then.

It is always hard to not be able to get a photo as good as you would like it to be, but you can only do so much and you have to know when to stop.

Max

[Kenny]

Hi Kerry.

I say it's time to send it home  :up:

[Kerry]

Thank you, am sending it off.  :)  Now onto another challenge.

Kerry