Hi...

People bring me pictures all the time, the stats are amazing, everyone has a picture to be repaired :rolleyes:
I like to bring the pictures here, cause I received different viewpoints, and that's how I learn for now...
How much do I charge to the clients? = 75% in knowledge, the rest? I let them pay the printing...
Can you help me, and tell me what can I do with this picture?

:bigthmb:
Thanks to all!

Hi...

People bring me pictures, the stats are amazing, everyone has a picture to be repaired :rolleyes:
I like to bring the pictures here, cause I received diferent viewpoints, and that's how I learn for now...
How much do I charge to the clients? =75% in knowledge, the rest? I let them pay the printing...
can you help me, and tell me what can I do with this picture?

:bigthmb:
Thanks to all!Hi archadia,

Can't help you about the 'charging' part ... Ps is just a hobby for me, so, I haven't got a clue about prices .... As for the picture, here is what I manged to do ... (worked only on part of the girl's face) ....

I'll come back later with the description...

Flora,
If only I had your talent... you never cease to amaze me. Especially as a hobby.

Archadia,
It depends I guess on how long you take to repair a photo. I know I'm not as speedy as some so I don't charge by the hour, I charge by the job. Not fair for my customers to pay more because I take a little longer. Plus, sometimes someone sends me a photo and I think won't take too long and then it ends up taking way longer than expected. All I make sure of is that after I take out taxes I'm making around what my husband makes at the least per hour so I can help pay the bills.

I'm climbing the learning curve, so I don't feel myself like a professional, so by now I will keep learning... what I was looking for is an 'ABC'... what would you do with this picture... at the end I will finish the picture myself...

Thanks to all...

and Wooow Flora! what a hobby! :bow:

Hi Arcadhia

This was done with Dust and Scratches and a layer mask to mask the eyes and mouth etc.
For the eyes and mouth I used Floras Tutorial here.
http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/?m=show&id=206

I added noise to the jumper to give it texture and Sepia toned.

Is this the same Woman as in your last post?

Ken

Here's my ABC. I'll leave D-Z out, OK?

A) In the channel palette adjust each of the three channels using levels (<ctrl><L>) to get the best greyscale possible from each individually. Note which ones are good, and which ain't;

B) Add a Channel Mixer layer, select "Monochrome" and play with the mixture until you've got the best image. Put in more of the "good" channels and less (or, none) of the bad one's. Here I used Red 50%, Green 50%, Blue 0%. (Often a mix of 70/70/-40 looks better - but not in this case.)

C) Go through the FFT technique to take out the paper texture.

This is what I got.......just the ABC!

From here on I'd replace the background, and repaint the dress from scratch.

Actually the image has one good point. The eyes (nose and mouth too) have been pretty much conserved. Seeing as they are very important in a portrait you can still make a good image out of this......as Flora :wavey: has shown us!

Rô

Flora
Brilliant stuff I would love to know you technique.

Peter

Hi Peter

Flora
Brilliant stuff I would love to know you technique.

I'll come back later with the description... :pleased:


BTW.
I think this is a brilliant way of displaying Before/After Pictures. When I eventually get round to some web pages I will do my pictures like this.
Vikki is running a poll
How do you like to view "before & after" images?
This option is not included. But if it were I would definitely vote for this method.


Ken

I would go to sleep, and I will wait in dreams for 'Fairy Flora' to tell me how She did her Magic... :wavey:

Hi everybody,

thank you so much for your comments!!!! :blush:

And here is what I did:

* I started with Rô's perfect ABC ...

* Dragged the FFT corrected copy on top of my 'original' working copy and set its Blending to Luminosity to get the colour back.

* To remove/minimize the scratches, working on strongly magnified sections, I started with 'my' blank Layers collection by creating the first one (mode>Normal) and used the Heal Brush set to Replace and Normal (make sure you have the 'Sample All Layers' box checked) on it ....

* I continued with several blank Layers set to Lighten, Darken, Soft Light and Overlay to lighten darker spots, darken contours and faded details, enhancing shadows and highlights in order to keep a 3D feeling. (I always keep the original open for comparison in case I get carried away ....

* Used Neat Image to smoothen the skin.

* Used Brightness&Contrast to brighten up the image a bit.

* Used USM for sharpening.

That's all ...

If you haven't seen it yet, I explained 'my blank layers' technique here (http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/?m=show&id=206) but you could also have a look at the 'heyrad technique' described here (http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=11553&highlight=heyrad)... I've bee reading about it only this morning and haven't tried it yet ... but it surely sounds very, very interesting!!!!

Hope this helps .... and you know where to find me should you have more questions ... :wink:

BLIMEY Flora that is very impressive, i cannot understand why you do not charge, you got a hell of a talent lady!

BLIMEY Flora that is very impressive, i cannot understand why you do not charge, you got a hell of a talent lady!


Ditto from me.

Just started readind your post about blank layers - great tips there.


Peter

Flora, do you have xray vision? Your example of restoration on this project was amazing!! Thank you also for sharing your expertise. steve

Flora. Thank you so much for your steps.

Using the healing brush takes longer, but definitely gives better quality. I guess this attention to detail is exactly what separates the good and the best.

Unfortunately in PS7 there is no ‘Sample all layers’ on the healing tool. So I have had to work on a copy of the picture rather than a blank layer. Have you and tips for PS7 users? I would like to work on a blank layer if there is a way (Non destructive)

Also, I wondered why you kept the colour, Is there any advantage to keeping it.?
After I ran FFT I just worked from there (in black and white) and added the sepia back at the end.

Thanks again.

Ken

ken,

i dont have PS, but this might work in ps7. it works in earlier versions of psp that dont have the 'all layers' feature. and if 'heal' is somewhat the same as 'clone/makeover' then this might work also in ps7. 'set' your clone/heal on the layer you wish to copy from and 'clone' on a different layer. this is sort of a manual version of 'all layers'. you can even do this from one completely different image to another. at least you can in psp.

Craig

Thanks Craig.

The clone tool in PS7 Does have ‘Use all Layers’ but is not giving the same results as the Heal tool. And the heal tool won’t let me choose different source and target layers/Pictures.

There is no real problem having to work on a copy of the picture but I would prefer to work on a blank layer if possible as it’s easier to ‘erase’ mistakes. It’s very easy to loose some detail (eg. in the ears) if the brush is too big.

I just did a search. The healing tool is mentioned 412 times in 95.000 posts here at RP. And only about 200 of these are prior to CS. A Very under used tool.

Maybe we need to start a new Glossary. – Glossary of Problems. – Where we could post faults and solutions.
There are so many tools and methods. The ‘Real Trick’ is finding the correct one

I did find these from the search which I need to try

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7168&page=2&pp=15&highlight=healing

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=8155&highlight=healing


Ken

ken,

ok, the heal tool must be similar to the makeover tool in that it draws its solution from the surrounding info.

what you could also try is smudge/push. i sometimes use this in very tight quarters rather than clone. just use a very small brush on a medium opacity. and just because i dont know what you know, you do know that you can overlap the clone tool on a line of two different colors/opacities/and luminosities and clone both sides of the line at once, right (as in an ear) ?

http://www.informit.com/articles/article.asp?p=99806&seqNum=2
Quote
Sometimes you just can't find a good sample source in an image. All is not lost. In these cases, you can open a second image and sample it. Here's how:
1. Open the two images in Photoshop.
2. Select the Healing Brush tool.
3. Click the image you want to sample to bring it forward, hold down Option (Mac) or Alt (Windows), and click to sample an area.
4. Click the image needing repair to bring it to the front.
Click and drag to paint as you normally would.
End Quote

It looks like I CAN Sample from another image. I just can’t paint onto a blank layer.

Ken

It looks like I CAN Sample from another image. I just can’t paint onto a blank layer. ok, that's a bit weird. maybe you could just cut and paste the area you wanted painted onto the blank layer then. or, and i have done something similar to this, put an extremely light fill, like 1% opacity of a light or white color, on the layer first and then use the other technique to 'heal' directly to the 'blank' (now with a very light fill) layer. i've done that with other tools that dont want to paint directly to a blank layer.

Craig