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pixelated...

Started by JackR, March 04, 2015, 02:23:45 PM

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JackR

Just got a pic to work on, it is very pixelated...saw it when I looked in the folders but figured it was because i was a preview...
https://www.flickr.com/photos/11371883@N07/16715359502/   original

https://www.flickr.com/photos/11371883@N07/16528848558/   wip

any thoughts?
The early bird gets the worm, but the SECOND mouse gets the cheese...

cheers...

Jack

Tori803

This is a tough one. A number of photos in this group have the same problem. If you look at the edges of the man's clothing you can see how the shapes have been distorted due to water damage.

There isn't a better version of the photo available. If the copy you downloaded is 900 px by 900 px, that's as good as it gets.

To even out the color in some of the clothing (like the man's pants, jacket, etc.) you could add a layer above, select the section of clothing you want to adjust, and fill the selection with the appropriate color. Then set the layer blend mode to "Color" and adjust the opacity as necessary. But for the striped blouse you'll have to work on each striped section individually.

If you feel this photo is more than you want to tackle at this time, just let your distributor know and it will go back in the gallery.
Tori
"Nothing in the world can take the place of persistence." -Calvin Coolidge

Mhayes

#2
Hi JackR,

Yes, I have lots of thoughts. It would make it so much easierto judge your work if the photo was embedded into the post rather than links to follow to another site. It may sound picky, but when you get multiple posts and multiple links; it becomes very hard to follow the progress when they aren't on the same page. I do not use flickr, so I can't tell you how to embed a link so that it shows up on the post. I will let another volunteer that is familiar with flickr. Personally I like photobucket. Also, remember not to move your links or photo as it no longer show your wip and make the discussion worthless.

Yes, this photo is pixelated and it is an old photos taken in 1973. The other problem is that all of these photos came from a lady in Colorado whose house was flooded and she had to find a way to get a copy of the photos to us. She had them scanned at a FedEx office and instead of one photo to a page, there were as many as 6 to a page. Then the pages were uploaded to me as PDF. I had to go in and crop each one and then upload to PhotoShelter. This photo is not typical of all the others, but I'm sure it will crop up on other photos. Also, having such a small photo makes it hard to work with.

When I went to flickr to download your original and WIP; they open in Photoshop as a Raw file. I know this gives you lots of whistles and bells to work with, but personally I do not like to see a jpg that was NEVER a RAW file turned into one. Once you tinker with the settings, it is adios to the original.  Here are some a few problems that I don't think you maybe aware of by using Raw:


  • 1.  Your sRGB jpg that was originally 3 x 4 a 300 ppi is now a Adobe RGB at 3.75 x 3.75 @ 240 ppi (that is the default). You may work in Adobe RGB but the color mode must be changed to sRGB for the printer.
  • 2.  Volunteers like to download your before and after and when it opens in Raw, they need to be careful to hit the "Default" and not the "Auto."
Since I have the original on file I opened it up and played with it. I first tried to find Neutral gray and that wasn't easy. When I found one close I did a Curves Adjustment and clicked the eye dropper for neutral gray. Since the white border was intact; I click the white eye dropper on it. I did not use the black eye dropper as it changed the photo for the worse.

I will show examples as soon as I can that may explain better what I am talking about. One other thing is that when I went into channels, the green channel had the best information and the blue channel was the most pixelated

Feel free to turn this one in or stick with us and we will give you tips that may or may not help. Don't feel discouraged because with practice you will discover what works.

Margie
"carpe diem"

Margie Hayes
OPR President
[email protected]

JackR

Quote from: Mhayes on March 04, 2015, 06:01:39 PM

Let me first say I am not being arrogant or argumentative...I have been using PS since Photoshop4 (not CS4)...I knew about the 300ppi and srgb and made sure it was that...

Hi JackR,

Yes, I have lots of thoughts. It would make it so much easierto judge your work if the photo was embedded into the post rather than links to follow to another site. It may sound picky, but when you get multiple posts and multiple links; it becomes very hard to follow the progress when they aren't on the same page. I do not use flickr, so I can't tell you how to embed a link so that it shows up on the post. I will let another volunteer that is familiar with flickr. Personally I like photobucket. Also, remember not to move your links or photo as it no longer show your wip and make the discussion worthless.
I used flickr because that is where AI have an account, and followed a post found in forums how to list them...I will see about embedding...

Yes, this photo is pixelated and it is a very old Polaroid taken in 1973. The other problem is that all of these photos came from a lady in Colorado whose house was flooded and she had to find a way to get a copy of the photos to us. She had them scanned at a FedEx office and instead of one photo to a page, there were as many as 6 to a page. Then the pages were uploaded to me as PDF. I had to go in and crop each one and then upload to PhotoShelter. This photo is not typical of all the others, but I'm sure it will crop up on other photos. Also, having such a small photo makes it hard to work with.

When I went to flickr to download your original and WIP; they open in Photoshop as a Raw file. I know this gives you lots of whistles and bells to work with, but personally I do not like to see a jpg that was NEVER a RAW file turned into one. Once you tinker with the settings, it is adios to the original.  Here are some a few problems that I don't think you maybe aware of by using Raw:

Actuall they are not raw files, still jpeg depending your preferences they can open in ACR automatically...

  • 1.  Your sRGB jpg that was originally 3 x 4 a 300 ppi is now a Adobe RGB at 3.75 x 3.75 @ 240 ppi (that is the default). You may work in Adobe RGB but the color mode must be changed to sRGB for the printer.

    I went and d/l the file from flickr just to make sure and it did open in PS (not ACR) as srgb and 3x3 at 300 ppi...you know you can stop it from opening jpegs in acr in the camera raw preferences in Photoshop...

  • 2.  Volunteers like to download your before and after and when it opens in Raw, they need to be careful to hit the "Default" and not the "Auto."
Since I have the original on file I opened it up and played with it. I first tried to find Neutral gray and that wasn't easy. When I found one close I did a Curves Adjustment and clicked the eye dropper for neutral gray. Since the white border was intact; I click the white eye dropper on it. I did not use the black eye dropper as it changed the photo for the worse.

I will show examples as soon as I can that may explain better what I am talking about. One other thing is that when I went into channels, the green channel had the best information and the blue channel was the most pixelated

I will take a look at the channels...

Feel free to turn this one in or stick with us and we will give you tips that may or may not help. Don't feel discouraged because with practice you will discover what works.

Margie

The early bird gets the worm, but the SECOND mouse gets the cheese...

cheers...

Jack

Mhayes

#4
Jack,

I don't think you are arrogant or argumentative and I could be totally off base here. However, explain to me where I am going wrong that they open up in Raw.  If I can open it up without it being Raw, would it then be correct? Perhaps having Photoshop CS 5 is why I am having it download that way. I have nothing against flickr, but it is nice when you post to be able to see your work and not have to leave the page to view a link. Not so much a problem the first time, but once the post has plenty of comments and wip it does make it harder.

I played around with the photo and I know how bad it is pixelated, but I wanted to color correct to look a little better. Here is your original and wip from flckr.



Your Wip



My color correction and trying to tone down the blue channel. I changed the mode to Lab and went in and did a surface blur on the B Channel and a little tweaking in Curves. I then converted back to RGB. No it doesn't look great and because it is so small I hope the man's suit with a matte print will look better than it does on my screen.



Yes, there is still damage to clean up, but this is where I was headed. You and others may have a better method.

Margie

Footnote:  I've not had the problem when I download a jpg to have it open without the Raw dialog--yours was the first time I've had that happen and assumed that was how it was saved? In my Preferences I have checked: Prefer Adobe Camera Raw for Supported Raw Files. I will not unchecked that as all of my photography is done in Raw and have not had the problem of a regular jpg opening in raw.
"carpe diem"

Margie Hayes
OPR President
[email protected]

jaoconnor

#5
I grabbed one of the black and white ones that were pixelated, maybe not so pixelated but just such low res. Maybe this isn't the place for asking but since your talking about the camera raw here.... I love to use Camera Raw, but I'm using Photoshop CC 2014 with Bridge and when I open from Bridge to Camera Raw I can make my changes then hit option Open and that will open the image without changing the metadata. Am i wrong in thinking that is the concern with using camera raw is that you will loose the metadata? I try and stay away from the filters (which has camera raw as a filter) since they are more of a permeant change. I also keep a backup copy of the image on my computer. I definitely don't want to do anything that isn't allowed or would make it not possible to have any photos printed back for these families. Just curious.

i asked about some of the other pictures in that group and was given a couple more to try and help with replacing some of the images on my original which is awesome!

Hannie

#6
Hi Jack,

This photo also has a lot jpg artifacts, I don´t think there is much more that you can add other than what you have done already.
Perhaps the skin tone of the lady in the middle can be improved a little?

jaoconnor, I use a Camera Raw script on a layer in Photoshop CS6 sometimes (no more ACR filter available in CS6, only plugin).  That doesn't change the metadata or the size/reslotion. 
You could experiment a bit and figure out if after saving your file that you adjusted in ACR still stays as the Original? (size/res/extension)



Hannie
Hannie Scheltema
Distribution Coordinator
[email protected]

Mhayes

#7
Jack and Jaoconnor, let me back up and say if Camera Raw works for you--go for it! Hannie is one of our best restorers and if she uses it when needed who am I to complain. The reason I don't for OPR photos is that I have been on the receiving end when things go really wrong. Back when I was a distributor I had a volunteer upload her restored photo and the dimensions were smaller than the original and a dpi of 240. I rejected her photo and asked that it come back to original size. The second upload was still wrong and the volunteer swore she did not crop or in anyway change the phone. By the 3rd time with it wrong both of us were getting frustrated. So I had her explain her workflow. Well you guessed it--she was bringing it into Camera Raw with the default setting of 240 dpi. See below.



I have my Camera Raw set to default to 300 dpi, but that proved to not be fail safe either. Once while shooting a weeding I offered to color correct my partner's photos. We were both shooting Canon's, but what I didn't know was that because it was a different model; camera raw settings reverted back to the default of 240 dpi. Luckily I caught it some 40 photos later instead of 400.

Margie
"carpe diem"

Margie Hayes
OPR President
[email protected]

Hannie

Hannie Scheltema
Distribution Coordinator
[email protected]

JackR



You can also stop PS from opening jpegs in ACR by selecting in PS  preferences> camera raw...
In the dropdown select disable jpeg support, then jpegs will open directly in PS...

Marige, figured out how to direct link to here... :D
The early bird gets the worm, but the SECOND mouse gets the cheese...

cheers...

Jack

Mhayes

Thanks JackR. Glad we can now see your post.  ;)

Margie
"carpe diem"

Margie Hayes
OPR President
[email protected]

JackR



Well this is where I am now...replaced the blue channel as it was totally blocked up, which reeked havoc with the color...lost a bit of hair so far too...lol
The early bird gets the worm, but the SECOND mouse gets the cheese...

cheers...

Jack

Mhayes

JackR, I'm not sure this is the way you want to go either. I know that the blue channel has the most problems, but not sure what you mean by replacing the blue channel? Removed and replaced? I'm pretty sure the man's suit coat was brown and his shirt and tie a gold or yellow. I realize this is a wip so that things will progress, but now the man's shirt is dingy gray/blue/pink mix. The man's and the woman next to him have better color. It maybe an illusion, but the photo now seems to be more blurred and looking out of focus. I know being pixelated will cause part of this, but yours looks even more blurred. When I used the "Surface Blue" in the B channel I chose a radius of 3 pixels and a threshold of 10 levels. This will leave the edges intact and not blur them.

Margie
"carpe diem"

Margie Hayes
OPR President
[email protected]

JackR



Replaced the blue channel with lightness channel from lab mode, which cleared up some of the mess, then did a  layer from the color corrected image and set blend mode to color to bring back orig color...still don't like it but the skin tones are better not sure how much more can be gotten out of it...
The early bird gets the worm, but the SECOND mouse gets the cheese...

cheers...

Jack

Hannie

Looks good Jack!
The sweater of the lady on our left still has a few little damage spots and perhaps you could smooth out the jacket just a little.

I tried to get some of the highlights in the hair back with a Curves Layer (lighter) and a hide all mask, low opacity brush the lighter areas back in.

Hannie

Hannie Scheltema
Distribution Coordinator
[email protected]