My First Restoration...

[jneil2]

Hello anyone and everyone!

My first attempt, prior to this one, was unsuccessful.  I think I have done a better job on this one, but I would appreciate any suggestions. This photo was so spotty, that I finally used a history brush with the median filter, set to Darken for the light spots and Lighten for the dark spots.  Then more retouching, levels, curves, color balance.  I am a little reluctant to take it much further, for fear of it starting to look to much like an oil painting.  I do think that it would improve with a small amount of Gaussian noise put back in to it...?

(15 minutes later.....)  -- Still trying to figure out how to attach the photos!!!!

Can anyone help me?  Going to go out for a little jog to clear my head!!

Jan

[glennab]

Hi Jan

You can set up a free account at Photobucket.com.  They'll walk you through logging your initial user name and password and setting up your album, then you can upload a jpeg, copy the last link address under the photo once it's uploaded and paste it into your post.  You'll only see the address until you actually post, but the image should show up immediately upon posting.

Good luck!

Glenna

[jneil2]

Thanks, Glenna, hope it works.....

Here is the original:





And here is my image so far:

[glennab]

It worked, Jan. I can see your images.

Just a couple of observations, though I'll assume you're still working on cleanup.  On the boy's shirt, you've lost the seam and the folds.  Where the little girl's dress had damage, the cloning is too obvious.  I wonder if you'd be better off to pull the pattern from another part of her dress -- just a feathered area over the damage.  I know that admin does color correction before the restorations are printed, but you might want to use the levels or curves eyedroppers to set your white and black points, as well as the gamma.  I find that often helps to see the damage better.

You're going great guns!  Keep up the fine work.

Glenna

[nitehawk]

this is my first attempt at restoring on opr.  I hope it's will be the first of many.  I was excited to receive my first invites, but theres alot more to this restoring than I thought I knew.  Up to this point my work flow has been a clone here a heal there and what I could find in
books that sort of fit what I was attempting.  Now that I am faced with problems that I have no idea how to fix I humbly ask for help. 
The three areas that are giving me fits are the stains across the girls blouse on the left, all the yellow staining even after I got the white and black spots and finally the missing bottom.  I've tried cloning and replacing the gaps with what was available from the grass areas, but to no avail. 
  Any help would be appreciated muchly.
                                                                      Mike

Sorry about the empty post.  I will try again.





"By Jove I think he's got it."

                                                        Thank you for the advice and help to get me started in the rite direction. :up:

                                                                               
                                                                             Mike  ;D

[glennab]

Hi Mike -- I can't see your images.  I think it's because you need an [IMG] after each image code.  If the code isn't closed, it won't work.  Try it!

Glenna

[kiska]

I believe it's an after.

[Ausimax]

Hi Mike,

Maybe you should have started a thread of your own instead of hi-jacking Jan's.

To your problems, the staining on the girls blouses, there are many ways to deal with this problem, one I find works well on some images and is about the easiest way I have found, that is to make a new layer and set its mode to colour, then either chose white as your foreground colour or sample the colour from a good area of the blouse, then on the new layer paint over only the stained area, then lower the opacity of that layer till it blends well.

At the bottom for the grass if you are using PS CS or CS 2 try using the patch tool, select a patch of good grass in full sun and sample that with the patch then move it over the rest of the area and patch it (watch not to get too close to the white edges or the patch tool will sample that as it blends the patches, have to do those bits with the clone).

If you don't have the patch tool try with the clone sampling the largest area you can find and cloning that, the other option is to clean up as much of the bottom as you can then crop to remove the bad damage.

Hope that helps you a bit.

Max

[kiska]

Mike, the photo was a bw originally. Go to image>mode> and click grayscale. That will get rid of the sepia.

[Ausimax]

Hi Jan.

You are doing well with a difficult image, I agree with glenna's comments, for the blouse if you are using PS CS , for the badly damaged area, clean up an adjacent area a little with the healing brush, then select the bad piece with the patch tool (set to Source)and drag it to the cleaned area. If you don't have that option, try copying a good piece of the blouse and pasting it over the bad bit, adjust the colour to match (with Levels) if needed, you may have to erase around the edges of your patch to make it blend well, and after you have merged the layers work any visible join with the healing brush to blend.

I know there is a LOT of spotting in this image but on the patterned area of the blouse try working carefully with the healing brush or clone to clean up just the worst spots - it is only a 4x6 photo so the spotting in the pattern won't be noticed a much as will the destruction of the pattern by over working it.

Hope this is of some use to you Jan, keep up the good work you are going well.

Max

[Ausimax]

Nice one kiska, I have been working mainly on colour photos and forget about Grayscale at times, I usually re-convert back to RGB after that - is there any value in doing that?


Max

[kiska]

I keep it in rgb to do the basic levels, curves, etc. Switch to grayscale and leave it there for the majority of work. Also keep it in grayscale to upload back................really helps with dialup. Know what I mean?   :cool:

[nitehawk]

Thank you for your help.  I will try your suggestions out as soon as possable.  Next time I'll use my own thread.  I'm sorry Jan if I offended.
                                               Mike

[jneil2]

Thank you so much, everyone!  This is going to be one of the best things I have ever done, belonging to this group of talented and bright volunteers!  I have so much to learn, and I have learned so much already in this short period of time.

I am inspired by yours comments, Max and Glenna.  Thanks so much, I will keep you posted on my progress.....

Jan

[Ausimax]

Hi kiska, talk about a pumpkin for a head, I convert to RGB before I upload B&W photos, and though I have satellite internet my upload speed is the same as for dial-up, typically takes about 30 min to upload a photo, never thought of the saving in file size using grayscale. :-[

Jan, glad you are finding the community a pleasant environment, I think most of us are on a learning curve here and give each other much needed support and tips, and generally try to be pleasant and helpful, even when being critical.

Max