1920s wedding party photo badly damaged

[Jo Ann Snover]

This is the same wedding as Bambi posted about recently:

https://www.operationphotorescue.org/forum/index.php/topic,5889.0.html

I'm looking for some feedback (Bambi said Margie would have to weigh in, especially if the solution is a vignette which we need her approval to do) about what reasonable options there are for this wedding photo. I haven't finished the parts that I know I can do, but there are two people whose faces are so badly damaged that I'm not sure I can do anything much with them.

Original:



WIP:



Proposed Vignette:



The girl on the left is an invention - no clue what her face looks like and there are no other photos from this wedding. I did try a version based on the woman next to her, but that didn't convince me :) The man (best man?) has eyes but the rest of his face is just gone, so I really have no idea, even if I cleaned up the rough start, whether that would work.

The groom is based on the image Bambi restored, so I know he looks as he should. I have blurred and darkened the image to match the rather soft images in this shot.

The original looks hand colored (and some hand edits on the jewelry) but I'm not sure if I should keep that or just make the restore monochrome.

Any other suggestions for what could be done with this image?

[Bambi]

Definitely should be BW. I think the vignette is the best idea.

[Shadow]

Agree with the B&W and vignetter. What a challenging image. Will be watching your updates. Good luck.

[Jo Ann Snover]

I did a little more work on this while I'm waiting for a ruling on how to proceed, and it occurred to me that it might work well to use the frame that Bambi's photo of this wedding used (it's vertical but otherwise I've used as is). Link to her post is in my first post here.

I did stretch and squeeze the image a bit to make sure we focus on the bride & groom and cut off the parts on the left side that are so badly damaged. Here's what that looks like:

[philbach]

I like your most recent vignette better.  I hate that you had to lose the girl on the left but I guess that is what needs to be done.  The white streak running down the grooms nose tended to stand out to me some.  Nice work.

[Candice]

Is it possible that this was hand-colored?

[Jo Ann Snover]

Is it possible that this was hand-colored?

It was, but Bambi's reply above said I should leave the restore as monochrome

[Candice]

I read that too, Jo.  Still might be fun to play with outside of OPR.  :)

[Jo Ann Snover]

I like your most recent vignette better.  I hate that you had to lose the girl on the left but I guess that is what needs to be done.  The white streak running down the grooms nose tended to stand out to me some.  Nice work.

I think this looks better (with regard to the white streak on the groom's nose)

[Candice]

You're done a fine job on this one Jo and I agree the nose looks a lot better. 

[Lynnya]

Nice job Jo Ann... tough one for sure.

[Shadow]

Coming along nicely JoAnn :up2:

[Mhayes]

Jo Ann, really love the end result!  :up:

[Jo Ann Snover]

Jo Ann, really love the end result!  :up:

I'm glad you approve, but (sadly) this isn't the end result - not the above or today's progress report :). But I will take it that you're OK with the vignette and prefer the white frame from the other portrait of this couple?

Today's struggle was with the bride's legs. The original is barely visible - the red channel has most information in this one - but several tries at positioning her legs didn't look believable. I got out my artist's model and looked at a bunch of photos online and you can see where I have ended up.

I haven't yet put in all the ribbons hanging down from the bride's bouquet (see Bambi's photo referenced above for the elaborate arrangement; I've never see asparagus fern knotted into ribbons before) but do the legs look believable?

The bride's shoes were morphed and warped from Bambi's photo (i.e. I didn't just make up the bows around the ankles). I did make up the chair legs - I think they're about in the right positions and the key thing is not to have them all eerily levitating! If there are any obvious crazy things - beyond the parts I haven't finished yet - please point them out. I'm mentally done with this, but I think I can muster some energy after more tea (mug? two mugs?)

[Mhayes]

Jo Ann, what I liked was that you got away from the oval black vignette, this looks so much better!