This is the only copy that exists... I tried to find the Original Picture, but I couldn't find it...
Can you advise me on the best way to retouch this picture?
It's only 1" x 1" :sad:

[She died in a car accident in 1996, that's why it's important to me in doing a good job THANKS]

I think this will be a simple case of laborious clone and heal (primarily clone given the very uneven texture)

I just concentrated on her face, and the only other element I used is overlaying a lips brush to try to patch her damaged lips a little.

Sorry to hear that someone as young and pretty lost her life. Take care . Neb :rainbow:

caitlin is right. no easy fixes on this one. you've got it to a decent image size, but you still might want to double it. this can make some of the cloning easier in the tight spots. i would also do a little contrasting to bring out as much detail as possible. doesnt need much. with contrast/brightness, i tried just a -5/+5 and that was enough.

you could try running it through polaroid's dust and scratch remover for the scratches and creases, but on sizes of scratches and creases like this, i prefer hand work.

Craig

This is probably not a difficult restore once you get past the mouth, otherwise, there's a number of ways to correct the rest of the image.

Dave

Archadia, I did an atypical retouch, along the lines of a portrait, rather than do a restore to original. I colourised it, as well and didn't do it (unfortunately) in PS. I used PIXL

Maureen

that's an interesting approach, maureeno.

Craig

Thank you all for the advise... I will post as soon as I finish...

that's an interesting approach, maureeno.

CraigCraig, I thought I'd try a different approach in the event it was a personal memento rather than a request for an accurate reproduction.

In the end, I also used a Virtual Photographer filtre effect which lightened the woman's blouse tremendously. Here's a basic retouch with scrath remover, blurring, Virtual Photographer Ambiance filter and texture filtre.

Maureen

I am posting my unfinished work because I have got stuck.
I’ve got rid of the tear through her mouth but the more I look the more I see teeth here. This alters the whole shape of her mouth.

Could someone have a look at the original and see what you think.

Thanks.

Ken.

I am posting my unfinished work because I have got stuck.
I’ve got rid of the tear through her mouth but the more I look the more I see teeth here. This alters the whole shape of her mouth.

Could someone have a look at the original and see what you think.

Thanks.

Ken.

Good job, Ken, but I don't see any teeth, though. It looks like another tear in the photo to me, but I could be wrong.

Maureen

ken,

your question about the lips and teeth got me looking closer. i dont think the teeth are showing, but it's darned hard to tell.

i also took a closer look at something that was bothering me ever since this image was posted. her left eye (on our right) is lower than the right. on looking at the image closer and by putting a grid on the image, i confirmed this. then, at looking at what i had thought to be fold/crease marks, i've come to the conclusion that these are actual tear marks and that someone has put this back together from pieces.

now, that also changes things. i've seen features on folks where one part is larger or smaller or slightly out of whack with a corresponding mirror part, like having one foot slightly larger than the other, but i've NEVER seen anyone with an eye that was that much lower on the face than the other one.

and, if you look at the lower lip, right in the middle horizontally, you can see what looks like her lip takes an S curve...seemingly. there are things like hairlips and so on that might account for such a thing, but i dont think so in this case. in light of all the other oddiites here, i'd say that portion of the lip was either put back wrong, someone tried to draw something in after the tear repair, or it's just an anomoly created by the tear repair.

like i said earlier, this is not an easy restore. and ken, i can certainly see how you'd arrive at teeth, and i certainly cant rule it out, but my leaning at this point is not.

Craig

ken,



i also took a closer look at something that was bothering me ever since this image was posted. her left eye (on our right) is lower than the right. on looking at the image closer and by putting a grid on the image, i confirmed this. then, at looking at what i had thought to be fold/crease marks, i've come to the conclusion that these are actual tear marks and that someone has put this back together from pieces.

now, that also changes things. i've seen features on folks where one part is larger or smaller or slightly out of whack with a corresponding mirror part, like having one foot slightly larger than the other, but i've NEVER seen anyone with an eye that was that much lower on the face than the other one.

Craig

Craig, here's a picture of me that bears a similar eye level disparity, but my eyes are really quite straight, my head was slightly tilted in this picture. It looks like Marie's head is also slightly tilted. I could well be wrong though on Marie's.

Maureen

maureen,

yes, i understand and i tried to compensate for that, the slight tilt, but it still just doesnt look right to me. i look at yours, the one of yourself and the individual eye angle matches up with the other. on the damaged pic they dont. the eye angles dont match up right. it just looks wrong to me.

but, on your advice, i'll take another look :)

Craig

Thanks Maureen. And thanks for the picture. If you put a guide on your picture your left eye is lower than your right but if you add a vertical guide this shows that your nose is to the left of the centre of your lips. This shows that your head is just tilted and you are Perfectly formed. I’ve posted the straightened version.
Craig is talking about a Very big difference.


Craig.
I had not noticed the eyes. But you are correct. Also the nostrils look correct in the horizontal but they appear to be different sizes and the area between the nose and the mouth does not seem in keeping with the rest of the picture.
It now looks like the triangular bit of the picture which contains the left eye could be raised up.

Her lips do take an S curve and that was one of the reasons I thought the mouth was open.

I think I’ll split this picture into pieces and start again.

I have been at RP for about six months. And it’s only now that I appreciate what an excellent job you do. You come along and assess these images and point everyone in the correct direction. You don’t get the praise you deserve for this as no-one sees the immediate results. But I would like to thank you for your contributions. You do a wonderful job. :bigthmb:

Ken.

ken,

thank you. that means a lot to me!

also, good catch on the nostrils. i hadnt noticed that one. that's a dead give-away also. that triangular piece is definitely lower than the part on the left, just as you said.

Craig

maureen,

yes, i understand and i tried to compensate for that, the slight tilt, but it still just doesnt look right to me. i look at yours, the one of yourself and the individual eye angle matches up with the other. on the damaged pic they dont. the eye angles dont match up right. it just looks wrong to me.

but, on your advice, i'll take another look :)

Craig


You were absolutely right, Craig, and I realised that after reading Ken's version of grids. Maybe our Marie's picture was torn and repasted together after all?

With as little as any of us knows, anything is possible and is, also, quite likely.

What a delightful little mystery this has become... :)

Maureen

I tried to retouch it. I just joined tonight and saw that. I needed some practice so this is how it turned out.

Phew. Craig was right. This was a big job.

Here are all the steps that I remember.

Selected the left eye triangle and moved it so that the eyes were level
Copied her right nostril to the left.
Selected the bottom half of the picture and moved it up to align the mouth.
Cleaned it up a bit
Added clothing
Neat image
Sepia toned.


Ken.

ken,

amazing job! you nailed the nose! and, you cleaned up and brought out the blouse! excellent!

the eyes still bugged me a bit, so i took your image and looked at it again in psp 9. and then it hit me from what maureen had said about the head tilt. so, i took the original image, put a selection on the triangular piece of the left eye and put the grid up and tried to adjust things, but they wouldnt quite work to the grid. so, taking maureen's suggestion about head tilt, i rotated the image 3 degrees to the left. aha! i then took your image and rotated just 2 degrees to the left and bingo! that was the other missing part for the alignment. so, your image works fine!

i'm posting a blow-up of having moved the triangle and having rotated to show you what i mean better. so, what i'm saying here is, your image is fine with the eyes (amazing, actually!) and it was the head tilt that was throwing me on the last.

very, very well done!!

Craig

Thanks Craig.
I must admit I spent far too long on this. 29 layers to complete.

I may have taken that triangle up another pixel or so but the hair was aligning perfectly so I decided to leave it where it is. I did rotate the whole image a little.

By moving the bottom half of the picture up I think the mouth looks a lot better and definitely no teeth but the mouth still concerns me a little. I don’t know what is right. I could be close but then again so could Skyopal or anyone else.

I am also not sure what nationality she is. I balanced the shadows and highlights as one of my first steps to give me some detail so I could have changed the skin tone.
Marie from Los Angeles (Possibly) Does not really help.

Her blouse looked a little worn so I gave her a new one.

This is the first time I’ve played with the grid (I usually use guides) It would have been nice to move the grid over a little but I could not find how to do it. I’ll have to start reading again.


Ken.

yes, that little S in the lower lip is a bit odd. no matter how you align the pieces that S doesnt make a lot of sense. it might just be part of the tear marks. i think at this point i'd just clone/push it out and match up with the rest of the lip.

in psp i dont think you have move the grid over either, but you can change the box size, which is almost the same thing.

if you dont mind, i may take your results and do some more cleaning on it.

i think you've got the right of it, though. it looks much better!

Craig

Thanks Craig.

I don’t know if this is any use but I’ve attached the bits I used rotated to the correct angle to match my picture. It also shows you where I split the parts. It may help you a bit.

When aligning top and bottom, if you push the two halves a little closer together then that s curve could almost become part of the top lip. I did not do this because I thought the lips looked too thin.


Regarding the Grid.
All the options are under Edit > Preferences
You cannot move the grid over as you say but I did find one good feature. As well as being able to set the number of lines in the grid and the distance apart in cm, pixels etc. you can also set in Percent. This is great because if you set the grid to 25% then you know you have lines at 50% ie straight through the middle of the picture.

Ken.

ken,

i dont quite understand the percent thing with the grid. what's it do? not sure psp 9 has this. yup, just checked, psp doesnt have any percent thing. it has horizontal and vertical sizes in either pixels, inches or cm and a 'snap to' influence and a color setting, but that's it.

re how you split it and moving the bottom half up, ok. i'm gonna play with it a bit more.

Craig