Kenny's Workshop (Advice Please)

[Kenny]

I just received this one this morning :




I remember there being a few more of him in the gallery. If I remember correctly, he's an actor. (He kinds reminds me of Dennis Hopper, but I know it's not. At least I think it's not)


Help!!!

Can anyone tell me his name? If anyone worked on another one like this, I would appreciate being able to see your finished work.

Any help is appreciated, as usual  :loveit:


Kenny  :)

[cmpentecost]

Wow, good luck with this one.  I always saw it in the available pictures, but could never quite figure out what was around his neck.  It looks like lapels on his jacket or something.  Would the signature above the left side of his head by his autograph?  It looks like Paul "something", perhaps starting with the letter "D"?  The person's face to our left (his right) will obviously need to be cloned out, as you'll never know what she looked like.  Too bad the damage is over all of her face. 

I'll be anxious to see your final product, as you've done so well on all of the others.

Christine

[Kenny]

My wife found out who he is!  :loveit:

She's a huge movie buff and started looking through IMDB.com for actors named Paul.

His name is Paul Darrow and the picture is of his character Kerr Avon from the Blakes 7 series. This should help Immensely! I still welcome any other photos of him, especially the signature. Christine, I know you're good at restoring signatures. It's undamaged in the green channel, any hints on restoring it?


Kenny  :)


*edit*

I have posted the picture on the official Blake's 7 forums. I hope someone there will be able to help identify the character on the left so I can put the face back.

[Kenny]

I found this video while researching Kerr Avon:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ow4cJ3LDQtM

This kind of stuff makes doing restorations fun  :funny:

[Kenny]

I really lucked out on this one.

I got two replies from the Blake's 7 forum, including a link to this high res image:



They just made my job a whole lot easier! I like to give credit where credit is due, so thanks goes out to the good people over at www.horizon.org.uk for responding so quickly and being so helpful.

I have to go to my sister's house in a few minutes, but I'll work on it later on today and post an update.


Kenny  :)

[glennab]

Kenny - Great sleuthing!  You have a perfect reference now!

And the video was a hoot.  I agree.  Little side wonders like that make our restoration work even more fantastic.

I gained an Irish guardian angel while I was posting on the Army.com web site looking for my Sergeant's ribbons.  He posted that "Nope, he couldn't help me, but hey you other guys, get with it."  I think I fell in love!  There are some incredible people out there!

GG

[Kenny]

This is the fastest one I've done yet :P



I used the face of the man on the left and part of the upper background to patch the damaged photo. I did a lot of cloning and healing to make it all work together. A little color and contrast adjusting later and I ended up with what you see here.

I did the best I could on the autograph. I copied the signature, used a soft eraser brush to smooth the edges, then set the layer to darken.

I'll wait to see what you all think before I upload it.

This one was the funnest one I've done.


Kenny  :)

[glennab]

Wow!  Speed demon!  The only pick I have is the hand holding our hero under the arm at our right. It and the area around it has a slight greenish cast, and the shape is a little off.  I can't quite put my finger on what needs fixing (pun, hah!) but it seems a bit too angular at the edges, for one thing.

Wouldn't it be great if they were all this easy?

GG

[Kenny]

I feel like I'm hogging the forum with all my posts :P

Revised version:




I tried to fix the hand, but it kept looking wrong. I finally just replaced the funny looking parts of it using the hand on the left. I did a little more color adjusting.

See what you think,


Kenny

[Ausimax]

Kenny, a great job, just shows what a little research can do, I avoided that photo like the plague, I had no idea who or what he was, what colour it should have been, or where all those damn hands were coming from.

A great job on what could have been a real pig. Re: the hand, I think the original was better, get rid of the slight colour cast and its OK, it looks strange, but thats how the original looked.

Max

[Ratz]

Great job Kenny,this must have been a lot of fun for you when everything just fell into place so well. I looked at this one in the gallery and originally thought he may have been an actor doing the Three Musketeers or something,checked out the video...how wrong I was! Again, beautiful work, congrats,Vicki :up:

[glennab]

Kenny, I really like the way you handled the hand. (Not again!)

Max, I have to disagree with you on this one.  To me the odd shape of the hand drew my eye away from the main subject.  I don't think smoothing it took away from the overall effect -- to me it enhanced it. The more natural looking hand makes it less prominent, and I don't think it defies our goal.

I'd be interested in other opinions on that.

Best to you both!

GG

[cmpentecost]

There are a lot of hands here....which one are you talking about?!

Christine

[cmpentecost]

Nevermind...I figured it out.  It's the upper right (from our view), correct?  The original kind of looks like he has 6 fingers!  Whilte the restored hand looks better, perhaps the man has a disfigured hand???  Probably best to keep it as close to the original as possible, despite the odd look.

Christine

[glennab]

Kenny and crew

I had to post this ASAP, because I've given some thought to the issue of the hand (a hazard of a mind that never shuts off!), and I believe I was wrong in suggesting one that differs from the original.  Chris is right, he may have a disfigured hand, and the person who went to the trouble to get the actor's autograph would probably be a fan and aware of all aspects of the photo and the characters, including the hand in question. It probably should remain as close to the original as possible.  Mea culpa for suggesting otherwise.

GG