Channels

[jaytrumpet]

Margie,

I was hoping you could steer me in the direction of information on how to reconstruct parts of an image using a specific channel. I have an image that I am working on now (HinkleA20_12_3pt5x4pt25 from Bambi's gallery) that is like so many in the gallery; the borders of the image have discoloration that is reminiscent of colorful fireworks. (examples would be the other Hinkle images). I am not sure what that kind of damage is caused by (age or water?) but you see it on a lot of photos on OPR.

In any case, in looking through the individual channels I notice that less damage appears in the green channel and I have a feeling that I could use that channel to reconstruct part of the image, I just don't know how to go about it.

I looked around on the tutorial forum but could not find info on how to do this type of thing. Are there tutorials (written or video) either here or elsewhere that can help me?

Jay

[Mhayes]

Jay,

I know that we have more than the following two links that will help you picking a channel to help clear up some of the mess when you see red and yellow discoloration. The first link has been repeated in other places by Kiska and it is usually the best way to go:

http://www.operationphotorescue.org/forum/index.php/topic,2666.msg24995.html#msg24995

The second way is one that I did from a tutorial in the magazine 'Photoshop Creative." I use
the first link the most.

http://www.operationphotorescue.org/forum/index.php/topic,2224.msg21745.html#msg21745

Anyone that can find other links, please post. I can remember certain photo, but what happens is if I go too far back in the forum, the links are broken and the photos are missing.

Make sure you do a color correction first and then work with the channel. Jonas has some photos that are worse than the ones in Bambi's Gallery and I had hoped to set up some additional photos that would have the original, the best channel, and the third would be what the photo looked like by following Kiska's example.

I looked at the photo you are working and I'm not so sure this one worked out all that well. There is only a small section at the bottom where you want the man's white pants and his belt and also part of the woman's dress. Post your WIP and maybe we can see what would be the easiest fix.

I don't want to get too carried away, but here is an example of a WIP from Jonas' Gallery that I used the blue channel to work with. When I'm working I also like to have another copy of the blue channel for a reference for detail.  Here is an example of my WIP.

The original:



The blue channel:




The blue channel after if was copied and pasted on top of the original and the mode set to Luminosity. There was still a lot of red, but I used the magic wand and selected and then used the color replacement tool in the brushes and sampled good lake color and then colored over the red. This was not perfect and you could see where I did it, but that would allow me later to see better to correct.



I hope I haven't made this clear as mud and we have had some really great restores from volunteers that had the same problem.

Jay, thanks for taking this kind of photo on!

Margie

[jaytrumpet]

OK Margie,

This is the original and my WIP. The info you had was helpful, but I would like to read more on this topic. I was able to isolate the blue channel to it's own layer and it did give me an idea of some of the detail, but didn't really help me fill in the areas of damage. I decided to go with some of it (the damage) and give the guy stonewashed jeans. It's hard to tell what he actually had on, I realize it's probably not strictly kosher as far as OPR goes.

[Mhayes]

Jay, I think you're doing fine so far, but I don't think his jeans were blue. In all the channels they look like they were white. Plus, I think off white would be easier to pull off than trying to color them. I would also get rid of whatever the pink thing on your lower right, because it is a distraction and I doubt if it is important.

The only other thing I can suggest as to more information about channels is the book: The Photoshop Channels Book by Scott Kelby. This book was out in 2006, but the information is still good.

Margie

[jaytrumpet]

Margie,

OK, here is the latest.

[Mhayes]

Jay,

This is a fairly small photo at the original dimension of 4.35 x 3.5 @ 300 dpi. I know you are trying to make this for the web, but now the photo is 14.222 x 11.708 @ 72 dpi and that is so large that you now have scroll bars at the bottom. You could actually post at the original resolution and be fine.

I think the girl's arm is really hanging straight down, or at least it looks like that on the blue channel. That would make it easier to fix and allow you to restore the dress on down. I know it is hard, but you have to watch out that you keep straight edges where needed---her arm as you don't want it to look bumpy. Nice job on restoring her dress!

This is just an idea, but you might have the hint of of a belt buckle. Maybe a gray horse shoe shape in the middle of the belt?

Margie

[jaytrumpet]

Margie,

The scroll bars disappeared? In any case for this one I didn't "save for web", just a save as.

I straightened her arm, hard to tell from the channels if it curved or not.

Gave him a belt buckle but didn't put anything on it.

Both their arms look a little elongated to me. If I could jut crop the image (I know that's VERBOTEN at OPR!) a bit from the bottom (at the belt line) it would make the whole image more believable.

[Mhayes]

Jay,

Yes, the scroll bars did disappear.  ???

I think this looks better and maybe true about the arms, but considering  the damage---not bad at all. As to the cropping to the belt line it would make the photo look off balance (tried it) with lots of brick background and less of the people. The only way to look proportioned would be to do a crop like you want and less of the background----make use of "the rule of thirds" on the two. This would mean you would have to upscale in the end and the quality would suffer by enlarging.

Believe it or not cropping is not VERBOTEN at OPR---we save that honor for Vignetting the image to hide the damage. Ask us first and you might hit the jackpot and we say OK (or you loose). Go ahead and post the crop, but also what we don't want happening is that the photo gets smaller and even if it is up-sized to make up the difference, the quality may suffer.

Margie

[kiska]

The arms should be about right. My elbows hit at the waist, and finger tips hit about half way to the knees.