Allan's Workshop - pool & pinup

[allanpat]

This was my first moderate restoration.  It's a great picture with most of the image data still intact, but tons of micro-damage.  Not only did I have to remove the water specks (the easy part), but i had to get rid of the massive yellow discoloration that had spread over the entire photograph.  There's still a few parts in the pool where you can see a little bit of yellow, but it was a tradeoff of completely restoring the color, or keeping the original water patterns in the pool.  I did my best.

Also, for the gravelly pool surface where the man is standing, i was concerned that using too much of the clone/healing tool had taken away the texture, so i imported a new rocky texture underneath my restored surface.  It was a little tricky to make it just visible enough that you could register the texture without making it look unnatural.  I think it came out okay.

Any comments/suggestions/critiques?

[allanpat]

and here's the original

[Cordelephoto]

Can you bring the photo colors up a bit?  Just a thought.  In photoshop, try playing with color burn a little bit and lower the opacity.

[Mark Wilson]

You've done a good job of cleaning up the damage I think, but you have lost a little bit of detail in the shirt in the process.

The edge of the pool is fine.

If you want to remove more of the yellow cast, here is a method which gives good results (although there are other ways to do this):

• Create a new blank layer
• Sample the colour you want to remove. In this case select it from the edge of the pool, bottom left.
• Fill the new layer with sampled colour, then invert it (Ctrl-i in Photoshop)
• change the Layer Mode to Colour Dodge and adjust the Opacity to suit (30 or 40% is probably enough)

Let me know if you can't follow me.

-Mark.

[allanpat]

Can you bring the photo colors up a bit?  Just a thought.  In photoshop, try playing with color burn a little bit and lower the opacity.

okay, this is weird - when i look at the colors in photoshop or picture viewer, they are much more vibrant than the way they are displaying in the browser.  I've tried to do a screenshot comparison - lets see if it displays properly

[Mark Wilson]

It is probably a colour profile thing. If you want your colours to display correctly in the browser you should apply an sRGB profile to the file you're saving. Otherwise, trust Photoshop's display.

-Mark.

[allanpat]

If you want to remove more of the yellow cast, here is a method which gives good results (although there are other ways to do this):

• Create a new blank layer
• Sample the colour you want to remove. In this case select it from the edge of the pool, bottom left.
• Fill the new layer with sampled colour, then invert it (Ctrl-i in Photoshop)
• change the Layer Mode to Colour Dodge and adjust the Opacity to suit (30 or 40% is probably enough)

very cool tip - here's a before & after using that technique - BIG difference!  thanks for the help

[allanpat]

Here's my latest restoration - it wasn't terribly hard, but was a lot of fun to work on.
How do you all think the background came out?  I was trying to keep it as natural looking as possible, while still having that airbrushed pinup look.

[rcarey2]

Pin up looks good. There were some things I noticed in the gif. I am not sure if they are artifacts of the gif process (removing colors). Is it a photo or an airbrushed picture?
1) The shadows in her hair and belly seem to have gone to black, did you lose some information there?
2) There was a horizon line just below her calf that I can't see in your restoration.
3)  I think you've done a good job with the background. Is it a flat background? I cannot tell from the gif. Maybe a little Filter>Render>Clouds faded WAY back to give the bg a little photography backdrop feeling (If that was in the original...)
paz y luz
ron