Hi folks,

I have really enjoyed reading through this forum. Just don't have enough time to take it all in. It's great!

Here is a pic I have just started working on. On the left is the original and on the right is what I have done with it so far. I have used, layer masks, level and curve adjustment layers, etc.

Any suggestions you have for what more to do with it would be appreciated.

Thanks,

Tom

tricky image. i think the first thing i'd do is crop this image to get rid of the folks on the bottom. there is nothing there worth saving. i'd also get rid of some of that curtain on the left with a crop.

next, i'd be very tempted to reduce or remove those curtains. they are more of a distraction than anything.

the guy in the middle looks good, although the data in his clothing seems to indicate that it was more blue. you could make a selection of that and alter it. but that's just a preference choice and not totally necessary.

the two girl's faces look as if they've had cloning applied. so, i'd be very tempted to redo those. and if you do, i'd simply make a selection of each face and a new image of the selection and double the image size, work on them separately, and then reduce them back down and paste them back in.

these are tricky images because they have multiple damage. it's faded and it's 'dirty'. the trick is to bring back from the fading while also cleaning up.

got to head off to work now, so, good luck :)

Craig

Here is where I am at this time.

MOre feedback please? Thanks!

Tom

i think it came out nicely.. I like the deep colors..

Craig.. I was a little surprised at your advice.... i think the first thing i'd do is crop this image to get rid of the folks on the bottom. there is nothing there worth saving. ..... I'm not putting you in charge of any family reunions :)

oh my! now how in the world did i miss that? the image i looked at originally only had the tops of the heads showing! not only that, but i dont seem to have the image on my harddrive any more! something odd going on here. lol rondon. you're absolutely correct. whatever it was that i did wrong, that advice was certainly misplaced. thanks :)

Craig

Hi folks,

I'm still at it with this picture (the more difficult the more fun they are to work with and practice on). Anyway, I am wondering what you would do with the orange/brown color cast that dominates this photo? Nothing I do will remove it very well. Plus, when I do get some headway, the texture of the images starts chainging to where it looks bad in another way.

A previous attempt with the picture (also posted here) looks better on screen than it does when it is printed, so, back to the drawing board. I need hlep!!! :-)

Thanks,

Tom

Well from what I can see Tom your colours look good, but the attachment is really much too small to tell anything more than that. If you don;t already know, you can save your attachment up to 100kb, and best to make it around 600x800 pixels.

i'd also like to see the larger image. i worked on this a little bit, but in looking at your first and second attempts, i'd say you've got it well in hand. but, let's see that third attempt :)

Craig

Thanks for the replies I've received.

In reality, I have worked this picture over ad infinitum. I'm somewhat of a perfectionist when it comes to this type of stuff. Thus, I'm driving myself crazy going over and over and over the image. Sometimes spending, literally, all day long on one picture. So, I'm not sure which one to post. The one I'm refering to is one I thought would make the best print, not so. It still comes out way too dark on the clothes (girl on right and man in middle).

The file here is a little degraded because of it being reduced and changed in order to post. Maybe this will help. Let me know what you think.

Tom

you've come a long ways. i like how you cleaned up the faces.

i was concentrating more on the lighting and didnt spend near the time you probably did. to balance out the left to right lighting i made a mask with a gradient along the edges. the mask was over the bright areas. i then converted the mask to a selection and used an adjustment layer of contrast/lightness to tone it down to match the other side, the right side, more. seemed to work pretty well.

i also did some cleanup, but you've got me beat on that :) nice.

Craig

Here is the last bit of work I did on this picture. Time and circumstances have prevented me from doing more. I would like some feedback and any further corrections anyone would like to offer. Thanks for the assistance,

Tom

lookin better, tom.

i did some quick touch-ups on your image. this is not meant as a final; just some things you could do if you want.

adjustment layer of contrast/lighten. added about 5 light and 20 contrast.
duplicate layer of original.
ran fast fix plugin on duplicate. took a tiny bit of red out and a tiny bit of saturation out. added more contrast but lowered lighting. added a tiny bit of green (for the curtains mostly) and a tiny bit of blue.
ran a sharpness brush over all faces.
ran a softness brush selectively over all faces to reduce artifacting where desired.
a bit of smudge/push/clone on various face oddities.

what it really needs is a sharpening of the faces. the detail is quite smudged/blurred. you could try Focus Magic or Unshake or Stroker's Lum Frequencies to see if this could be done better. off hand, i think it really needs some fine detail hand work, but some of those programs/plugins might make it better.

Craig

Thanks for the response and the input on the image.

Unforatunately, I have not yet learned how to reduce the image and upload, without losing some of the quality of the pic. Perhaps I can post another, better image of the image (I'll do it on another website where I can place a bigger file) and then you can see it clearer.

Thanks for the work. I'll defenitly try some of your suggestions.

Tom

tom,

no need to reduce it. that would just make it harder for folks to see and work on.

you've got it pretty good. mine was just a quick example of something you could do. i see a lack of contrast and fuzzy faces mostly. the faces are obviously the hard part and i'd do more but you'd have to pay me at this point ;) it's a difficult image and you've come a long ways.

Craig