Kurt's BABIES! (First OPR Projects)

[glennab]

Hi Kurt

Upon seeing the close-up with some color still in it, I can make out flowers as well.  Lucky you, to have an extra set of eagle eyes in your fiancee!  I think the fact that you hadn't colorized the wrist corsage is what threw me.  (the fact that my eyes are 150 years old doesn't help!)

Later!

GG

[kjohnson]

Hey thanks for the idea to look in the CMYK/LAB channels.... I'll do that to see if there's other bits of info there too.

[kstruve]

Brookie,

Here is the palate I used for the skin tones on the lady.  I'll probably go a little darker and more bronze for the man.



Keith,

In CMYK, the most useful channels are magenta and yellow.  In LAB, the A and B channels are best.  Sometimes you have to invert the A or B channels and then dial up the contrast to see what's in there.

Kurt

[kstruve]

Glenna,

Yeah, my finance' definitely has her own set of eagle eyes.  Especially when it comes to figuring out the clothing that people are wearing.  Felicia is one of my secret weapons!

Kurt

[kstruve]

Hi there!

I wanted to post my progress on my first restoration project.  I'm thinking that this is pretty close to being the final version, unless somebody can see something that I've missed.  The original file is still up on the first page of this thread for comparison.



I've taken a stab at restoring the diaper area which was pretty damaged.  Also, I've touched up the bed, the foot and added some detail to his right hand, which was almost completely gone in the original.

How's he looking?

Thanks,
Kurt

[glennab]

Hi Kurt

Considering how little you had to work with, I think you did a wonderful job.  Not much you can do about the foot or the right hand, because as you said there was nothing there.  The majority of him/her is recognizable, and having that much restored is an incredible gift to the family for whom you did this work.  Many kudos, and I think he's ready to go home.

GG

[GP]

Hi Kurt,
great job on this one  :up:. 
But since you asked... I believe the baby's leg is not quite right. It looks to "fat " for one leg were it comes out of the diaper. I think you see part of the other leg behind it. I don't really know how to explain it, I tried to indicate what I mean on the picture.I could be also completely wrong  :wow:

Gerlinde




By the way... I'm in awe about your other restoration. Maybe you could write a tutorial on that one for us. Her dress looks so nice and shiny, how did you do that?

[kstruve]

Gerlinde,

I think you may be absolutely right.  Thanks for catching that!  I think the line of the foreground leg is a little different from what you've drawn, but I do see the line between the foreground and background legs in the blue channel of the original photo.  In the back of my mind I've been wondering where his other leg was!



Thanks!
Kurt

[kstruve]

Gerlinde,

Thanks for the compliment on my other project, (the "young couple").  It's coming along pretty well, I think.  I haven't worked on it for a few days so I can finish up this "baby" project and return it first.  Plus, I was busy with other things this weekend.  After I finish the "young couple" project (successfully) I'll see if I can put together some sort of tutorial and post it somehow.  I'm not sure how different my workflow is from that of others, but I would certainly be willing to share how I do things, and what my general approach is.

My quick answer to how I made the dress shiny is: Isolate the least damaged color channel, clean it up with the clone stamp and healing brush, dial up the contrast, then replace the color with a separate layer on "Color" blending mode.

Kurt

[GP]

Thanks for the info Kurt, I will have to try that out. I'm still learning to do things in PS so any help/ideas are very welcome!

I like your new picture with the hat  8)

Good luck with the rest of your restoration, I'm still waiting for new pictures.

Gerlinde

[kstruve]

I've just uploaded the final restored "baby" photo!  Thanks to everyone who provided helpful comments and support.

I'll continue using this thread for the "young couple" project and I look forward to getting more great comments and suggestions from all of you!

Thanks!
Kurt

[kstruve]

Hello!

I've been making some progress with the young couple photo, so I thought I would post an update.  I have pretty much completely restored the lady and I've done a lot of work on the man's suit jacket.  The part of the jacket I'm having problems with is the bend at the elbow.  It needs to be redone.  Supposedly there are some other reference photos of the man that Mike is going to send to me, so I'm going to wait on them before starting work on his head.  The background is giving me fits too.  I can't figure out exactly what's going on back there.  It looks like a wall with a venetian blind shadow pattern projected onto it, but there is a piece of wood furniture back there that isn't receiving that pattern.  It's confusing to me.  Thoughts?

Here is a comparison between the original and it's current state of restoration:



Please offer up comments.  Thanks for looking!

Kurt

[zapphnath]

Great job on this - what you've done, so far, looks incredible.

I'd imagine that those are two windows, with matching blinds, seperated by a very nice, ornate column.
As far as what the top of the column might look like, I guess that'll be up to you to create.  There do seem to be some hints on the left...

When this one's done, it should get a place in a sort-of Best Of gallery, somewhere.

[OPRAng]

Regarding the baby photo...what happened to the huge pink fingers????

Just kidding...thanks for all your hard work!

Angela

[glennab]

Hi Kurt

Your couple is coming along beautifully.

I just wanted to give you my thoughts on the background.  It could be striped wallpaper, regular venetian blinds, louvres or the translucent "honeycomb" blinds.  The pattern is very regular except for the object directly behind them, so I'm tempted to say wallpaper.  As for the "object" the only thing I can think of that would be the height at which you've rendered it would be a hutch of some sort.  Maybe an entryway armoire?  I don't even have a definitive guess, but those are the things that popped into my mind as I was studying the image.

For what it's worth!

GG