Opinions please?

[Lynne]

Hello, I am looking for opinions on the progress of this photo I started working on yesterday.
Do you think it is complete? This is only my second photo with OPR so I want to ensure I don't upload prematurely or that I am way off.

Thank you,

Lynne

[Mhayes]

Hi Lynne,

Great to see you on the forum and you did a nice job. The main problem is that your photo has plenty of good information and texture that you want to keep. You did a great cleanup, but your version looks painted and more of a caricature of the man.

Here are some points to keep in mind. Even though this is a B/W that looks sepia, your first thing to do is to color correct--always no exception. What looks like sepia is most likely colored by water damage and maybe even age. Do either a Levels Adjustment or a Curves Adjustment. I did a quick and simple Curves Adjustment and hit the auto button. From there I clicked on the "Channels" tab to see which of the R,G,B channels looked the best. In this case it was the Red Channel, with Green Channel second best. Since the Red channel looked the best (Photoshop CS5) I picked the Black/White Adjustment Layer and on the pull down tab chose the Red Filter.



When you post your before/after, it helps to post them separate so that volunteers can download them separate. Here is the original.



And here is the original color corrected and then changed to a B/W in the Adjustment Layer (but still a RGB) with the Red filter. The color correction made the photo sharper and picking the red channel helped in getting rid of some of the damage. There is still plenty of work to do, but restore without painting over good texture. Hope that helps.



Post your WIP and we will help and don't get discouraged as all of us get better with experience.

Margie

[Lynne]

Thank you Margie, I will try this out.

Lynne