Hi. I have been lurking for a long time, and trying to learn as much as possible- great site.
I have a photograph that was hung in the sun for years, and has severely faded and changed color. I though someone here might be able to point me in the right direction, as far as restoring the natural colors in the image. I would greatly appreciate any help you can give me.


Thanks,


RBURKE

Well that yellow discolouration luckily is quite easy to get rid of, as it is largely just on the one colour channel. A couple of ways - use a channel mixer adjustment layer and use equal parts of red and green channel set to monochrome, or you can simply copy either the green or red channel (which ever you think looks best) and copy it to a new document.

After that you will still have to do a fair amount of work though to get the contast, curves and levels right, as it is all looking a bit blown out currently.

*edit* I just reread your question - are you asking for the photo to be restored to full colour? It looks to me like it was always black and white - I can't see any vestiges of colour, even at the edges of the frame.

Caitlin,

Thanks for reponding. Yes, it WAS a color photograph, but it was exposed to direct sunlight for years. I need to restore it to full color. The trees should be green, as should the grass, the sky blue, etc.
Thanks for your help!


rburke

I don't think there is any colour information left there if that is the case - it will be a hand colouring job. I am surprised you say it was a colour photo, as there seems to be an edge on either side where the photo is darker - presumably covered by a frame, and there is no colour detail there either (that I can see - one of the many clever people on this forum may well still come along and prove me wrong!)

Caitlin,


Thanks. Hope fully, someone else can help too. The thought of hand-coloring this is daunting.



rburke

i'm afraid the others are right; there just isnt enough color data left to work with. your best bet is to take this back to black and white and get rid of that yellowing, then bring it back to full 64 million color type and do your colorization. there are links around here for doing that. but the existing color is shot.

Craig

Thanks Craig,

It looks like that's what I'll have to do. I appreciate the reply and advice.



rburke

you're welcome.

there are supposedly some good colorizing tutorials on here, so look around. i dont do colorizing so cant speak to how good they are. but, i do know there are some excellent colorizing folks here, so the tuts shld be good also.

Craig

Thanks Craig,

This photo has everything going against it. Out-of-focus shot on a cheap camera, light damage, etc. I scanned it on my Microtek 9800XL at a high res, and there is still very little detail. I'll probably just tell the guy that it's too far gone and give him a B & W print.
I may keep it to practice colorization on, if I ever have a year or two to spare!


rburke

rokily dokily, good neighbor.

make sure you charge him double for having to have taken this to a consultant ;)

Craig

Well, here is my attempt. The best way I found to fix it was to bring it back to B&W. Then I duplicated the layer and used a multiply blending layer set at about 30%. Then I adjusted the contrast. Just something quick and dirty.

Scott

Thanks Scott,

That looks much better.
As it turned out, the client remembered that there was another, full color print of the image that he is getting for me to work on. So, I'm off the hook with the B&W version!
Thanks to all who helped!


rburke