Hello I'm real new to restoration an was wondering what software to get. Is it harder to work with photoshop or paintshop or painter as far as restortations. I have photoshop but I've never used it for this. I have a painting of my aunt when she was 3 that has been through a fire. I tried but it didn't look too good. If anyone can help me, thanks in advance

welcome to RetouchPRO, oly19.

interesting picture and cute little girl. lots of stuff that had to be handled here.

i started with the Fast Fix filter plugin, just to get things started. reduced the saturation to 0 and tweaked the contrast and brightness a bit.

frankly, i dont recall all the steps. one was a new, blank raster layer. i used it to paint whites and blacks to lighten some things up and darken others down. i also used this layer to paint out the corner damage.

i also had a duplicated layer of the fast fix layer in which i masked some areas to lighten and darken, mostly the background.

got it to a semi-decent state and flattened all.

from there it was fine tuning. lots of little smudge, clone and push tweaks to clean up edges.

and that's the basics of it. there were some adjustment layers with curves and levels and contrast/lightness, but i forget where all i had them.

in darkening the bright area in the middle of her dress i did sacrifice some detail.

also, one interesting item is the shoe. it appears to have been painted in.

Craig

Hi oly19,

Welcome to RetouchPRO! :pleased:

I used Photoshop to restore your picture/painting.

I used Selective Colors to remove the burnt yellow, then, contrary to Craig, I used Levels, Color Balance and Hue/Saturation trying to keep and enhance the original colour.

I used Neat Image (can be downloaded free here (http://www.neatimage.com/download.html)) to remove a bit of 'noise'

USM to sharpen a bit and finally darkened the edges with a soft blue vignette.

Craig,

... you eliminated her beautiful ribbon.... :o: :o:

Oh!! That was a bow! I thought it was a rip in the photo *lol* Good work Flora!

Hello and welcome!

Here is my shot at it using Photoshop7. I'm not really happy with it----I don't think the skin tones are right. And I was about halfway through coloring when I realized just how big a problem the bands running through the scan were. Should have gone back and started over at that point but.... <G>

Anyway, I thought this was a great picture and whatever program you decide to use to restore it, well worth any time it may take you. I think you said it was a painting, not a photograph? I wondered if it was an actual painting or a hand painted photograph.

Craig's restoration efforts were better than mine---as I said I got in a hurry. Basically I just copied the red channel and did some clean up on it, mostly with the healing brush. Then I recolored it using layers. I used a very soft brush and was not real careful with edges. I was going for the hand painted photo look. What I found though was that the color accentuated the bands of light and dark so I went back after the fact and tried to deal with them using a combination of the healing brush, blur tool and curves.

Flora, I too noticed was that Craig decided that it was a tear not a bow. I thought the same thing at first, that it was damage then decided at a closer look that it was a bow....or that if it was a tear, it made a great bow!

I would be interested in seeing your final result oly19. Good luck!

Bill

You guys are good I couldn't get it near that! I'll be using those tecniques for sure. Thanks. If there is anyting else you would like to add Thanks again in advance. Where can I get the fast fix plug in?

oly19 ... The most important thing I have learned about Photoshop, Paint Shop Pro or whatever package you use ... is that there is always more than one way of doing things ... and that the good folks here on the forum will be happy to show you ... :)

So keep coming back with any questions and problems you may have .

Oh!! That was a bow! I thought it was a rip in the photo *lol* Good work Flora!

Me, too, Caitlin!!

Maureen :dizzy:

I'll remember that, and I thank all of you for the help. I'll make sure to have regular visites to this beautiful forum :)

a bow. crap. i saw that when i had the image zoomed in so i didnt catch the full outline. nice catch, flora. i'll be sure to reimburse him his full payment. seems i missed a couple more things here; one, that it was a painting, so, ergo the 'painted shoe'. and two, the color. sloppy. the color wouldnt really have mattered, though, i would have taken this one back to grays anyways. i'm not trying to colorize yet; too much else to learn, like, seeing bows.

Craig

a bow. crap. i saw that when i had the image zoomed in so i didnt catch the full outline. nice catch, flora. i'll be sure to reimburse him his full payment. seems i missed a couple more things here; one, that it was a painting, so, ergo the 'painted shoe'. and two, the color. sloppy. the color wouldnt really have mattered, though, i would have taken this one back to grays anyways. i'm not trying to colorize yet; too much else to learn, like, seeing bows.

Craig


Yeah, well I'm with you on this one, too, Craig! :)

Maureen :dizzy:

Thanks everybody!!! :pleased:

...After reading all the posts, I really started having doubts about the bow .... :dizzy: :dizzy:

Bill,

I also realized how bad the scan bands were well into my restoration ... :o:

Flora, stand firm, don't let them sway you...it WAS a bow. (And if not it is now, at least in our worlds---ever watch Bob Ross' painting shows? It's your world, add a happy little bow!) :)

I saw those bands right off in the original but then when I copied the red channel and started I thought that had eliminateed them on the girl, they only seemed evident in the background there. Until I started adding color then I realized they still ran through everything. For both good and bad, I suppose color can bring out details.

Bill

No, no! I wasn't for a second suggesting it wasn't a bow! It certainly is! Just that I wasn't very observant! *lol*

sorry bout that. i think it's a bow too. i was just saying 'crap' as in, 'how did i miss that?'. i think my reading glasses need reading glasses.

Craig

i decided to do this one over, from scratch.

Craig

Craig,

I think you've gotten the best results so far. This is the hand colored photograph look I was going for but you did it much better. Your colors look closer to what I think the were in the original and you got completely rid of the scan bands.

Good work!

Bill

thanks bill,

it looks a bit blue overall to me. if you wanted to mask the girl and dress and remove some of the blue in the background, or vice versa or both, it might work out better. i didnt want to lose any of the blue in the dress, so i left it for comment.

Craig

I put the pic up an didn't know:) now that's bad!

Craig,

You may be right about the blue. I did a few adjustments using your image and masking parts as you suggested. Changed the background color and increased the red in the skin and tried to bring out some more of the color in the dress.

I think the picture is a bit light/bright overall but when I played with curves I couldn't get anything I really liked better so I just adjusted the curves a bit for the background and then the seat.

Oh, and I added a layer to add color to her lips.

Hope you don't mind my fiddling with your work...like I said I think you had the best repair job.

Bill

no, i dont mind, bill. feel free.

the yellow background certainly lessens the blue. good job on that. not sure about the skin color. the color in the dress looks good. but, what are those blue/purple glows in her hair and under her neck? did that come from mine or something you added? also, her shoe now looks a bit too colorful to me. the lips definitely look better than mine!

oly19, bad? you dont like it?

Craig

Craig,

I'm not sure where the purple came from. I think from adjusting channels although I didn't notice it as I was working. It may have happened (or gotten worse) when I adjusted the size down to post.

As for the shoe, I agree but I think it looks odd on all the images including the original (as you said earlier it looks very much painted on). I'm not sure the whole bottom of the picture isn't problematic and a bit distracting from the face. This would be a quick cheat to deal with all of it.... <G>

Bill

lol. when there's a problem, frame it! hehe.

i think that blue/purple comes from something i did with color balance. i looked at mine again and i've got it too.

nice job :)

Craig

No,you guys are doing a great job, I was saying that it was bad I didn't see that bow myself. Sorry about that thanks for the help.

ah, ok. thanks oly :)

Craig

Wow, great jobs everybody!!! :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

Ok .... so .... a bow!!! :wink:

Craig,

it looks a bit blue overall to me. if you wanted to mask the girl and dress and remove some of the blue in the background, or vice versa or both, it might work out better. i didnt want to lose any of the blue in the dress, so i left it for comment.Really great job!!!! Yes, it is overall blue, but I like it! ... By decreasing the yellow, the blue comes really 'alive' so, you could use the Hue/Saturation to lightly desaturate the blues only, or to lightly change their hue.... This would influence the blue of the dress as well unless you used a Layer mask to cover it...

Bill,

Great colours!!!

I'm not sure where the purple came from. I think from adjusting channels although I didn't notice it as I was working. It may have happened (or gotten worse) when I adjusted the size down to post....Selectively decreasing the Magenta could help...

As for the shoe, I agree but I think it looks odd on all the images including the original (as you said earlier it looks very much painted on). I'm not sure the whole bottom of the picture isn't problematic and a bit distracting from the face. This would be a quick cheat to deal with all of it.... <G>

Bill .... Actually, the picture is a painting .... :wink:

Bill,

it's my turn to hope you don't mind if I used your version of Craig's restoration to work on .. :D :D .... I think it was a pity to cover it with a vignette simply because some parts didn't satisfy you ...

I tried to fix those parts pointed out in Attachment 1

In Attachment 2 my version of your version and one with a soft darker vignette ...

thanks flora :)

and i hope there wasnt any misunderstanding when i said 'crap'. i meant that as 'crap, i missed that', not 'crap, you're wrong' :) i was banging my head on the desk at the time so my typing may not have conveyed the correct meaning :)

Craig

seems we just posted at the same time, flora. excellent job! THAT'S the painting restored!

Craig

Flora,

Great job! I prefer the second one with the dark vignette. I actually liked some degree of the “burnt “ color of the background from the original and I think that captures some of that without the damage. Craig is right, I think with your work it’s probably restored!

My post with the frame was meant as a joke. Probably didn’t make that clear. I know oly said in the first post that it was a painting but as I mentioned earlier I wondered if it had not started life as a photograph that got hand painted. In any case I still think, whatever it is, that the face is lovely---very detailed and the lack of similar detail in the lower portion distracted.

Bill

Well, I gave it a try as well, I was not satisfied with my first several attempts but this one seems to be the best of my efforts to date. Unfortunately, while I had my head buried in the computer you folks we busy posting some really great stuff. Anyhow, here it is.

Bruce

Thanks Craig , Bill!! :pleased:

Craig,

...and i hope there wasnt any misunderstanding when i said 'crap'. i meant that as 'crap, i missed that', not 'crap, you're wrong' :) i was banging my head on the desk at the time so my typing may not have conveyed the correct meaning :)

Craig... No misunderstanding whatsoever there ...I understood perfectly what you meant with your exclamation!!! :) :) :) ... But thank you so much for your consideration... :pleased:

Hi greatguy,

If I haven't done it yet ... Welcome to RetouchPRO! :pleased:

Really nice job!!! Maybe just a bit too smooth so that a some details in her lovely face have been lost .... but the darkish background really makes her 'pop out' ....

...My post with the frame was meant as a joke. Bill

Sorry Bill .... I think I've been too long in the sun and a great part of my brain cells just evaporated!!! :jacko:

Flora---no problem. I think I need to master using the little smiley faces and not rely on my <G>s .....<G> :classic:

Bruce, I too like your background a lot. I might mottle it a bit (maybe render clouds using a grey and brown on a layer with a low opacity) but it seems to fit well with what I was talking about earlier about preserving some of the darkened "burnt " look.

Bill

Congratulations to all, and as always a special :bow: to Flora. :wavey:

Thought I'd do a bit of "cross-polination" from the arty side of RetouchPRO.
Something I'd wanted to do is just paint over the cracks.... well seeing as this is a painting...

Did basic retouching steps and then went to Painter and made a new portrait.

OK, it's not really retouching but just thought it might be interesting.

Rô

No misunderstanding whatsoever there .. good :)

Craig

Used layers in studio artist and finnished in PScs.

Thanks Flora and Bill for the constructive comments. Each one gives an idea of how to better "tweek" your technique.

I did this correction only using Photoshop. The first thing I did was to look at the color channels. The blue is trashed so I replaced it with the green channel (I tried the red first, but the green looked better). You do this by viewing the green channel, then Select All, and Copy. Switch to viewing the blue channel, and from the Edit menu choose Paste Into.

After that I tweeked it a hundred different ways mostly trying to get the face color right: Levels, Color Balance, Hue/Saturation, Selective color, duplicated layers (or parts of layers) and changed the blending mode to Multiply and turned down the Opacity, Cloned and Healed, Blurred the background, tried Match Color to get the arms and legs to match the face, and who knows what else.

I'd like to find a replacement shoe.

welcome to RetouchPRO, down2earth.

excellent job!

Craig