Hi folks,

I love this website. I'm thankful I came across it!! Its great. So, I hope you experts will have some advice for me on how to deal with this picture.

I have done quite a bit with it, however, it is not cleaning up near as well as I would like.

What would you advise on taking care of this one?

Hi Tom,

Welcome to RP. Your picture is a little small to see the detail well, the file size limit is 100K, so you could try posting a larger version if thats possible.

In the meantime, will try having a go with your posted image, I'll get back to you if I have any success with it.

Thanks Gary, I do appreciate it.


Here is another copy of the pic. Maybe this is better.

Thanks,

Tom

Hi Tom, had a quick go with your picture. Results not great, but possibly an improvement on the original.

Created new layer, and did a bit of cloning, using dark areas of background to mask blown areas.

Then new layer, set blend mode to soft light, fill with 50% grey. Now using soft black brush set to about 5-10% opacity, paint in darkness to some of the blown areas on the figures.

Levels adj to up contrast a little.

Will try with slightly larger version, if results better will post.

Thanks Gary, that's great! Especially the hair on the child holding the baby!

Here is a copy that I have done some work on. However, at this point, it seems to look to cartoonish!! Esepecially does it look this way where I have tried to reconstruct the hand of the young girl.

I have used several methods to get to this point. Cloning, healing brush, patch tool, etc...

Keep in mind, I'm a complete novice at all this. I appreciate all the help I get. Thanks,

Tom

Hi Tom,

Welcome to RP! :pleased:

I had a quick go at your picture.

I worked on the smaller one (the only one up last time I 'was' here...)

I cropped the picture.

I used the Heal brush (mode>replace first and normal then) to minimize the strange stripes on the left side.

I used Levels and Curves to balance shadows/highlights

I used a hair brush on the hair of the girl holding the baby.

Hue&Saturation for a light sepia tone.

Dark vignette around the corners..

Mine was a quick try ... only to see if it could be improved.

Your restoration looks a bit like a painting but I like it ... What I would do is softening the transition edges around the people and decrease the intensity of the black door opening at the back which, in my opinion, is a bit too strong...

Thanks Flora, your effort looks great!

All of this is a big help. I will post again shortly.

Tom

Had a play about with the second image, a bit more detail to work with. Didn't really do anything different.

Flora, really nice job on the figures.

Hi Gary,

That looks great, especially the background! What did you use to bring out the background that way? No matter what I do, I can see no details (other than the door frame). Could be my monitor's display settings. Not sure. However, I can not find those details, even though I know they are correct as this picture was taken in front of the same house that this family often took pictures in front of.

Great stuff!!

Tom, Gary,

thank you so much for your kindness! :pleased:

Tom,

looking forward to seeing your final result!

Gary,

great job restoring the plank wall (? ... did I say that right? :D ) ....

Hi Tom,

I cheated with the wall, and stole it from another picture (one of the challenge images), one with a similar planked wall. Copied and pasted into picture, then adjusted size and hue/sat to get a reasonable match. Masked it to fit round girls head.

Flora, yes, plank wall is fine. I know I've used planked wall, but both are valid.

I think the wall is different. If you check the marked area (the circle) you can see that there must be some vertical wood sheets. It seems there are 2 horizontal sheet above those. That means when looking from the side instead of this..

\
\
\
\
\
\

its more like this..
_
||
||_
||_'
||
||_
||_'
||
||

Also there is something above the dark horizontal area (see marked area). It's over the complete width of the picture. Most likely another wood sheet.

Just an idea..

Here is another attempt at fixing this picture.

I am very frustrated at this point as the more I try to clean it up, it seems to start evolving into a cartoon type look.

Also, no matter what I do, I can't get the dirty look out of it. I'm using various filters and have followed several tutorials, but end up with it looking like a painting instead of a photo.

The hands are a mess and that is one of the most difficult areas to deal with. I have also added color to it, in hopes that it would bring out some areas that I could work with more closely.

Anyway, here is my latest attempt. I don't wish to go any further until I get some feedback from ya'll.

Thanks for all your help,

Tom

Hi Tom,

First of all, be aware that certain areas of this picture will be very difficult to clean up. Most namely the area of the girls hands and the little girls legs.

You will almost certainly not be able to restore this back to an "as new" state, as there is not enough "good" picture data to work with. You may be able to borrow from another image, but this in itself poses significant problems.

Just a few hints when cloning.

1. ALWAYS Clone on a new layer.
2. Be aware of the texture of the image you're working with, and choose a brush thats appropriate (ie vary the hardness/softness to suit).
3. Try varying opacity of brush to blend things in rather than softening brush (sometimes this works better).
4. Vary brush size. Sounds obvious I know, but you'll find its easy to get stuck using a brush of one particular size, when a different sized brush may give better results.
5. Try experimenting with the clone brush set in different blend modes, this can sometimes help with certain cloning difficulties.

By working on a seperate layer, it is easier to correct cloning faults, by simply erasing them and re-doing them. Also you can vary opacity of layer as another adjustment.

Don't try and clone the whole image on one layer, choose a small area and try to get it right. Then another layer, and work on another area.

You can merge layers once things are right to keep file size down (be careful to make sure you're happy with things before you do this, as its difficult to step back once you've merged.)

Hi Tom,

what Gary said ...

I'm one for 'as close as possible' to the original and try-everything-you-can, but, in some cases, particularly when good/vital picture data is missing or damaged beyond recognition, it is just not possible ....

One thing I always try to keep in mind is not to lose 'the' focus ... meaning... unless it is some historical 'document', where every single detail can be of vital importance, when working on a picture portraiting people, I concentrate on them ... what good is to put a lot of time and effort to perfectly reconstruct a plain, non-descript background, if then I can't restore the eyes in a face or bring the main subject of the picture to an acceptable condition?

With this in mind, I learnt to 'crop' away, entirely or partially, non vital-damaged parts , I learnt to hide or cover such parts, to borrow from the same or other pictures when reconstruction is nearly impossible ... alas, what I haven't learnt yet is to perform miracles ... :wink:

i'm posting this one only to show what the background looks like. i didnt try to clean up the rest of the picture.

also, flora, what exactly does the heal brush do? i dont have anything like this in psp 7.xx and brushes and tools like you're using show me that it may well be time to get better software. you did an excellent job that i would have had to do with a lot of cloning. oh, and how much time did you spend with the heal tools on this one?

Craig

Craig,

Thank you very much for your kindness! :pleased:

The following is the Photoshop Help File definition of the Heal Brush:

The Healing Brush tool

The Healing Brush tool lets you correct imperfections, causing them to disappear into the surrounding image. Like the cloning tools, you use the Healing Brush tool to paint with sampled pixels from an image or pattern. However, the Healing Brush tool also matches the texture, lighting, transparency, and shading of the sampled pixels to the pixels being healed. As a result, the repaired pixels blend seamlessly into the rest of the image. .... and I would add colour as well ...

I'm posting two examples of differences between 'Clone' and Heal ... As you can see, the Clone just covers up .... the Heal corrects blending in .... With the Heal Brush you can also create a pattern of a good part of the picture and use it as a sample for larger areas to be restored, without bothering to sample all the time ... It has its limits of course, but it is a really fantastic Tool!!!

Attachment 1 is just to show you the 'macroscopic' difference between these two Tools .... Attachment 2 shows a practical example of it in what could be a routine restore work ... In both cases I used the same brush size and hardness ans sampled from the same points .... (needless to say ... the heal brush version is the right most one in both attachments... :wink: )

thanks flora :)

yup. that's the tool i need. However, the Healing Brush tool also matches the texture, lighting, transparency, and shading of the sampled pixels to the pixels being healed. As a result, the repaired pixels blend seamlessly into the rest of the image.

let's see.... i'll need a new computer, photoshop cs, corel painter, a new printer, a new house to put them in......

Craig

Hi folks,

I've done a little more work on the photo I posted previously and would not like to get more feed back.

I've done some correcting and also colorized it. The coloring was done in hopes of it bringing out more in the image that I can work on.

My problem is keeping the picture from morphing into what looks like a painting.

What would ya'll suggest from here? Thanks in advance!

Tom

Hi Tom,

You are getting there ... :pleased:

Your last version isn't much like a painting like your first one was .... just a bit on the 'flat' side for lack of contrast, a little 'over-denoised'' for an old picture ... and, at least on my monitor, the colours look barely there ...

I tried it again using the bigger size (light sepia and partially coloured) ... I replaced the planked wall (not too happy about it ... ) ... and the girl's arm and hand 'borrowing' from another picture ...

Thanks Flora,

That is great!

What I am having trouble learning is how to get rid of the flat look. The curves thing and the levels both seem confusing to me. I know practice makes perfect but just can't seem to get it. Also, the borrowing from another pic, which I have tried on the hand, but none of it looks as good as yours does.

This is a great job! I'll go back to the drawing board one more time.

-Tom

You are very welcome, Tom!

.... it's always easier to correct a 'rather flat' image than too strong a contrast since, once you get solid black or white areas in a picture, you lose any detail which might have been there ... So, I rather work on a 'flat' image and 'pump-up' contrast near the end ... :happy:

Curves and Levels are very confusing when you are not yet familiar with them .... My tip is to experiment (play :wink: ) a lot with these two amazing Tools ... and to not forget the mid-tones when using them, as mid-tones have a very strong impact on how an image is going to look at the end...

The Tutorial that got me 'going' with the Curves can be found here (http://www.gurusnetwork.com/tutorial/curves/) ....

Hope this helps.

Hi Flora,

Thanks again for all the suggestions. I am learning an lot from the tutorials you have pointed me to as well as the suggestions you have made.

Here is my latest attempt to correct the photo. This time, I went for half the image. (The hands are driving me crazy! LOL! Although I did think the imposed hands in your posting looked good. I have tried it myself and can't get it to blend no where near what you have done).

Also, the curve tutorial is very helpful, but playing with it as probably going to be the only way I can get it. I still can't do much with the lady on the right side of the pic. Her hair will have to be borrowed from another image, and not sure how to get any real substance in her face. The colors are just flat.

Oh well, let me know what you think! Thanks again, have a blessed day!

Tom

Tom,

I played around with this some yesterday (taking a beak from my own -----------------). I used the first version you put up. First, I think you were right to crop it. I took out the top part right away. It really doesn’t add anything to the picture. With the rest of the background instead of blackening it out you might try a something like this—I just used the Gaussian Blur filter but you can play around with several if you want.

If you have a bigger version of the picture with greater detail I would try the healing brush on the arm. I’ve been using it a lot the last couple of days. It can be slow but you can get good results, much better that I was able to get here with the smaller scan.

I think that some of the hair texture you need is in the image. It is sometimes easier to use what you find in the photo itself if you can as things tend to match up better. I selected out the hair from the right side of the baby and used it to “improve” the hair of the other two. Basically I just rotated the sample and added it as several new layers with varying opacity. On a couple I set the layer to multiply, lighten or darken vary the effect. I have included the selection I used. I only took one selection but changing the place you cut from and the shape will give a less cloned look to it. And again, if your actual scan is more detailed the detail is easier to cut out.

Hope this is useful, I did it all very quickly just to see if it would work. It could look a lot better if you took more time

Bill

Hi folks,

Here is another posting of the picture I originally posted here. I have been going at it with a little more care. I have used mostly cloining and the healing brush, patch tool and a couple of cuting and pasting efforts (hair taken from the picture itself and not an outside source).

What I would like is your input on where to from here?

Hi Tom,

Well, you've persevered with this and got a really good result. I don't think there's really too much more you can do, considering the state of the original.

Possibly you could adjust the contrast a little, and there's a couple of burnt out areas on the face of the girl on the left that you could possibly attend to, but nothing of any real consequence.

A very nice piece of work.

Hi Tom,

I don't really have much to add to what Gary has already said ...

You have preformed near miracles in some parts of the picture (reconstructions and cleaning) .... :thumbsup: :thumbsup: .... But, in my opinion, the shadows/highlights/midtones balance isn't what it should be ... and, if not done on purpose, the already limited 'sharpness' of the original has been lost by blurring along the way ....

I think you have managed wonders! I recall that early on you planned to color this. You might look at this tutorial which i found when Flora suggested it in anothjer thread. I have been trying to master this method and it might work for you here

http://www.worth1000.com/tutorial.asp?sid=161015

Good job!

Bill

I think you have managed wonders! I recall that early on you planned to color this. You might look at this tutorial which i found when Flora suggested it in anothjer thread. I have been trying to master this method and it might work for you here

http://www.worth1000.com/tutorial.asp?sid=161015

Good job!

Bill

There are many fascinating tutorials on that site, among them two other colorizing techniques. The galleries are worth a look too.


Pierre

Excellent supplied tutorial

Here I am again folks. I have been rather obsessed with the photo and continue to work on it a little each day. I always start fresh each day and have come out with some intersting results. However, this is likely my final attempt on this one and I'm interested in what you think. This has also been colorized.

To refresh your memory here is the original and the finalized version. Feedback and any improvements please.

Tom

Here is my first posting on this picture

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=10891

lookin good, tom.

but, frankly, i wish you'd keep following in the same thread. you've got several threads going all on the same image and work. put them all in the same place and folks can follow the work and comments and learn better...and help better.

Craig

Hi Tom,

Since they are about the same topic/picture, I merged your Threads ....

As Craig said already, t is always nice to be able to go back and compare with the first image posted and/or to be able to read, follow, add-to all the tips already given for a particular problem ... :happy: