Photo of girl needs new eyes and suggestions

[battleaxe]

Require help on this one.   Have her on a green background, for that was the colour my colour picker chose , when I selected a spot above her head.
I know it looks kind of plastic, but when I add noise or lower opacity it looks worse to me.
The discolour on her face is hard to get rid of, for changing some of it changes her face.
I think her face is pretty close to the original.

Don't know what to do for her ear.  Think she has three ear studs in it.  Can't seem to get it right in the middle.

Did the dress/vest as best I could.  Could not find the same plaid over the internet.

Please feel free to pick out errors, and suggest corrections.   :hug:

Whoops I forgot one of her eyebrows ;D.

[Mhayes]

BA, this one is really going to be a challenge and I wouldn't mess with the background until the last. I also would not make it green. I think background is so degraded that I don't think you are going to get a correct reading. When I did a color correction I got more of a blue background. I would start working on her head and then work down on her uniform. Right now her face is too purple and she sort of looks radio active. Another way to approach this one would be to do a B/W (still in RGB mode) and then color to match what good info there is. I do not think she has studs in her ear, but rather this is damage and the ink is washed away.

Good Luck!

Margie

[battleaxe]

Thanks Margie,
Guess I went way off tangent.  Here is my first try, trying to do what you suggested before you suggested it . Can't seem to get rid of the sploches without destroying her personality in the photo.  Will try again with this way again.  The other way I was trying to repair channels. Also used a new smudge brush.

[Mhayes]

BA, this needs lots of work, but this is so much better than the other.  :)

Margie

[battleaxe]

Okay....I am having problems matching colours.   Her vest/dress is a deep,dark purple or burgundy .  Tried sampling the colour, color it in. It is not the right colour, so added hue/sat, colour balance etc to try to get it the right colour....no joy as yet. (Same problem with the face)
Also can't get the vest pattern right yet.
Does she have arms bottom of the sleeve or is that tape?
Am I getting slightly radio active again?

[Hannie]

Battleaxe, what a challenging project and how far have you come already! 
I like Margie's suggestion to work in monotone colors (in RGB) and at the end, if possible, add some color.
I agree with you that what looks like arms showing at the bottom is tape really.
Another thing I noticed is that on our left side the collar may extend just a little further like I show in my example?

Hannie

[Mhayes]

Battleaxe, Hannie is right and when I suggested working in B/W (rgb mode) and then coloring; you need to have that version looking as good as you can get it before you attempt to hand color. Otherwise all the splotches and damage are really going to show up. Your last example does not look as good as the version before it. Some years back I posted an example that I got from a magazine on coloring. I will have to go back in time and find it. It will give you a totally different approach from how you are doing this one.

Hang in there!

Margie

[Mhayes]

Battleaxe, here is the link I was looking for: http://www.operationphotorescue.org/forum/index.php/topic,2224.0.html

I still recommend waiting until you have a cleaned up B/W (sRGB) and then trying this out. For practice take Hannie's photo for practice. I believe that Katrin Eismann also has a section in her book covering similar techniques.

Margie

[Mhayes]

 Below I have taken Hannie's B/W (in sRGB mode) and have played with it by cleaning it up and worked on features that are damaged such as the nose. Following the link I gave on the previous post, here is an example of coloring with a solid color adjustment layers that allows you to pick the color (while keeping the texture underneath) and then paint in. What is great, you can change as they are adjustment layers.

The first thing I do is make a copy of my original and then I go to the Layer's pallet at the the bottom and I choose "Solid Color" (your background white and your foreground black) and then hit "Okay." That will leave your screen black, click on the mask and invert by hitting "Ctrl I" (Mac: Cmd I) to invert the mask. Now both the color and mask will be black. Next and this is real import: double click on the layer and it will bring up the blending option--choose "Color." Then I duplicate this layer maybe 15-20 times. After color correcting the original, I have a separate copy next to my WIP as I may want to sample a color on the original and use it when I start coloring.



On my first color adjustment, I double click on the color icon and it will bring up the color picker and then you can pick a color you like for your base. Once you click okay, the color icon will change to reflect that color. From there you can play with the opacity both on the layer and the brush. Next, click on the mask and with your foreground white; you can now paint that color where you want and adjust as needed. Use a soft brush.



Believe it or not, this can be fun, plus you are not destroying your work. I would suggest that you make sure to save as you go along. Also, I label my layers so that I know where I used them on. Feel free to use other adjustment layers to tweak.



This is just a rough draft of how it works and as you can see it leaves much to done. Plus, I colored when there was still damage underneath and you don't won't to do that.



Margie

P.S. Have fun restoring the plaids.  >:D

[Hannie]

Margie, thanks for the tutorial, I find colorizing very difficult but this method is really worth a try.

The hardest part for me would be which colors to pick.  In this case I would copy your image of the colors that you picked and use that image in Photoshop for reference.

Hannie

[Mhayes]

Hannie, the best way is to take a good photo, duplicate then change to B/W in sRGB mode (allows you to colorize). Put the two photo side by side and use this technique. Mainly I was just experimenting and my first attempt really had better colors, but I found out when I went to the layers I wasn't just dealing with the opacity of the layer, but also when I used the paint brush I also changed the opacity. That first attempt didn't have the photo restored good enough, so I couldn't go back and use it.

A good reference and help is Katrin Eismann's book Photoshop Restoration & Retouching, pgs. 134-135. She has a color chart in RGB/CMYK for various skin tones. She also suggests keeping swatches of skin tones which you cold find various models on the Web. You would want just a small square to keep for reference.

I am listing the colors I used, but I'm sure that different various could look better. One thing to keep in mind is to constantly vary your opacity which helps in the blending. Also, pay attentions to shadows on a person's face as by darkening you can give the impression of depth.

This is pretty complete, but there were some layers I may have combined, for example I used the Level's Adjustment layer to boost the highlights to lighten the girl's sleeves. I masked that out to protect the rest of the photo. I also went back and added some color to the sleeves--blue gray very lightly.  Some colors on the face were used in specific areas. A Wacom tablet and pen makes this easier.

Here are my numbers:



Cont'd to top of layer stack:



Margie

[Pat]

What a great tutorial Margie; thanks for all the work you put into it as I sure it will be bookmarked by many for future reference.

I love Katrin Eismann's book which is available in most public libraries and still offered on Amazon.  Even though it was written to take advantage of the most important features of Photoshop CS2 it should not be dismissed by those with later versions of Photoshop.

Pat    

[Mhayes]

Thanks Pat. The tutorial part is something I picked up out of a UK Photoshop magazine years ago. I loaned the magazine--never got it back--and made a copy of the article to refer back. Katrin shows a little of using adjusted blending mode, and her suggestions on skin tones are very useful. I have PS CS5 and find her book the best when it comes to restoring and even though it stopped at CS 2; I felt like it showed you how to use the tools that never get outdated.

Margie

[Bambi]

Great tutorial, Margie. And a good reminder. thanks.

Bambi

[battleaxe]

okay.......here is my latest.   I still have to fix the vest colour/texture somehow.  Do I have her face done, especially the nose and lips?  I'll recolourize this and make her skin darker.  Though it looks darker on my monitor  before uploading, guess not dark enough though, and too red.