Hi guys
I am very, very new to doing anything to photos - apart from pointing the camera! I would dearly love to preserve this treasured photo but, as you can see, it has been in the sun for too long and, although I have tried my best, I have not been able to get much colour back into it. I would appreciate any help you can give me - along with very clear instructions please! Thanks in advance Pamela Bill

hi pambill,

here's my attempt -- i'm a beginner, but had a lot of fun with this photo; what a beautiful family!!!

i first did a curves and hue adjustment and then masks for color. just playaround -- this was a fairly quick try at it -- as long as you save the original, you can never go wrong. i didn't touch the background.

Marsha

Looks like there are some twins! :-)

The photo has obviously been in a frame, so I cropped it to the frame area designated by the discoloration.

A couple H/S/L adjustments, and levels.

Well thanks Marsha for taking the time - you have made a better job of it than I did. I think I am frightened of it. I will have a try at what you suggest -thanks Pam

Thank you too Swampy for replying to my post. All the information I am getting is really appreciated. I will try what you suggest too - Pam

Hi Pamela
Welcome to RetouchPro.

Your picture is sun faded but the edges are still OK.


along with very clear instructions please!

OK. This is what I did.

1) Select the faded area
2) Add a Levels Adjustment Layer
3) Key in these Numbers

RGB. 58 1.11 255
Red 15 1.19 232
Green 29 0.49 238
Blue 63 0.70 228

This gets the centre and right border close

After that I went on to adjust the borders to match the centre and painted and cloned to match.
Layers set to colour to paint out some of the colour casts.

Hope this helps.

Ken

wow CameraKen that looks like new - thank you so much. I will try and do all that you have said. I didn't realise how bad the photo was until I took it out the frame to clean the glass. I hope I can get it as good as you did. It's the only photo I have of my mother and all her grandchildren (they're not all mine!) If I can get it as good as yours I will make a copy! thanks again Pam

One more attempt although not a great one. It all ended up looking quite cold. :tongue: Best I could do. Lots of very random level, color and curve adjustments that I lost track of I'm afraid.

I used the crop tool on the faded portion.
I then did a levels adjustment and color balance (I played around with all the sliders until I thought it looked good).
I then adjusted contrast and brightness.
I am a novice at this and thank you for the "practice" image.

Rich

I tried several methods. The method that seemed to give the best color is what I've posted. The bad news is that the result is pixelated.

I cropped the photo to remove the "more normal edges."
I converted to CYMK. Skin color lacked magenta. Yellow Channel very pixelated.
I used apply image. Target Magenta and Source Yellow Channel.

That seemed to give a nice color balance which I then treated with levels.

Ken's method of using levels to each channel gives a much better result as far as pixelation goes I might add.

My method was just another approach to the problem.

Well, thank you all very much for taking the time to help me with this photo. I hope I can make as good a job as you all have - and I will definitely take a copy of it this time. Thanks again Pam

Here is my attempt :ditsy:

1:cropped a little
2:level adjustment in all the channel
3:brightness/contrast adjustment
4:color and tone balance
5:healing and cloning
6:a tiny bit of sharpen

Stofa, welcome to retouch pro. You did a very nice job on this photo. Thanks for posting it.

Time: Approximately 58 minutes

Techniques:
Crop the edges out
Fade Correction 100%
Automatic Color Balance 6148
Automatic Contrast Enhancement -
Bias - Darker
Strength - Normal
Appearance - Normal
Clarify - Strength 5
Automatic Saturation Enhancement
Bias - More Colorful
Strength - Normal
Skintones Present box checked
Edge Preserving Smooth - 5
Red Eye Removal

Duplicate Layer and leave only skin visible
PhotoTune's Skin Tune Filter until it looks right then merge layers
PhotoTune's 20/20 Color MD (I LOVE these filters,very worth the money)
Power Retouche - Soft Focus Filter - Effect Spread 100, Effect 1
Power Retouche - Sharpness Filter - METHOD Smart Sharpen for JPEGS, SHARPEN IMAGE % - 100%, BLUR RADIUS, pixels - .5, FIX EDGES % 80, EXTRA HIGH QUALITY box checked

Then I did PhotoTune's 20/20 Color MD once more to get the final result :D

If you're interested here's the links to PhotoTune and Power Retouche
http://www.powerretouche.com/ (http://www.powerretouche.com)
http://www.phototune.com/

*note I had to resize the photo to put it on here

I noticed I ended up with blued hues on the grandma's hair and the blonde girls hair. I fixed this in this manner.

Duplicate layer and get rid of everything except the grandma's head. (it's easier if you turn the visibility of the background off)
Colorize 0/0 and duplicate layer again
Manual color correction - Hair Colors - Ash Gray
Fade this into the BW selection until you get the desired result
Merge visible and erase everything that isn't her hair (it helps if you toggle the visibility of the bg on and off throughout so you don't erase too much or too little)
Turn the visibility of the background on and merge layers

Duplicate layer and erase everything except the blonde's head
Automatic Color Balance to approximately 4000, to add warmer tones to the hair.
Fade using the layer transparency until you get the desired result.

http://www.familytreephotorepair.com/pambill_FTPR.jpg

Removed color cast, corrected contrast and improved saturation with numerous curves in LAB mode; selective color adjustments for skin tones; neat image to remove noise; selective sharpening.

excellent job, gary!

craig

Appreciate yur comments.

Cheers.

Gary

Removed color cast, corrected contrast and improved saturation with numerous curves in LAB mode; selective color adjustments for skin tones; neat image to remove noise; selective sharpening.

Hi Gary,
I would love to get more details on the curves that you did in LAB mode--very impressive!!
Bob

Thanks infixpix. Very difficult to recall just what I did with this particular picture but I use selective (.. and often numerous ..) curves in LAB with most retouch work. The Lightness channel for contrast, darkening, etc and the A & B channels for color and saturation changes. I highly recommend any writings by Dan Margulis on this subject, in particular, his ' Photoshop Lab Color - the Canyon Conundrum ' book.

This thread expains it somewhat ..
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=18308

HTH.

Cheers!

Gary

Hi there

I decided to try and keep the whole picture. I used dueling levels adjustments to get as close as I could.

Then I painted a few areas that just would not match then blended with the original background.

I had to make a few patterns for the dresses to get them to match across the fade line.

Then just a little selective blurring and application of noise where needed.

Butch

Thanks infixpix. Very difficult to recall just what I did with this particular picture but I use selective (.. and often numerous ..) curves in LAB with most retouch work. The Lightness channel for contrast, darkening, etc and the A & B channels for color and saturation changes. I highly recommend any writings by Dan Margulis on this subject, in particular, his ' Photoshop Lab Color - the Canyon Conundrum ' book.

This thread expains it somewhat ..
http://www.dgrin.com/showthread.php?t=18308

HTH.

Cheers!

Gary


Thanks, I'll check it out Gary.
Bob

I 'landed' here and had to have a go ... I just love these kind of challenges!

Like Butch, I workd on the whole picture.

Hi Flora,

Back with a bang I see. We've missed you.

Lovely job (as if we expected anything else).

welcome home, flora :)

and i second what gary said; excellent job!

craig

Hi Flora.

Great job and Great to see you back Flora. :happy:

Ken.

i'd rather make a photo black and white then end up with a picture full of funky colors. If you cant make it look at least half way natural....black and white. it is more important (in my opinion) to make the detail come out a bit and have the people look like people not aliens.

Gary, Craig, Ken,

thank you so much for your 'welcome back'!!!

The kind of life I'm living makes of me the most 'unreliable' person of RetouchPRO ... :o: :o: .... But it's just great to come back to my friends!!! :kisses:

Hi laradfreder,

Welcome to RetouchPRO! :pleased:

I agree with you on the fact that if you can't bring back acceptable colours, B&W (or a light overall tint) is the way to go .... But, if you are required to bring the colours back, B&W (or a light overall tint) aren't a choice :wink:

Sometimes it's not possible to bring the 'original' colours back, in that case you could always turn to colorization .... where, lacking information, the choice of colours is subjective....

As a detail-aholic myself, I couldn't agree more with you about bringing out details... but, in my opinion, balancing shadows/highlight is just as important.

You did quite a good job in bringing out the faded details but, by increasing the 'shadows' you lost details in the darker parts of the picture ...

By decreasing the black in your version, a lot more details are visible: hair, clothing (the buttons on the young man's sleeve, a clear definition of the young woman's jacket and the bench ... etc) ... If needed, increased contrast can always be added to selected parts of the picture later ... :)

Thank you all so much for taking the time to look at my photo and adjust it for me. Your passion has got me interested in repairing photos and I haven't stopped at the one that I posted here. I am now repairing all of my old photos - removing red-eye and unwanted items in the photos! I don't think I will ever be as expert as you all are but, at least, I am trying! Thanks again. Pam

flora,

i'm surprised no one has asked, but having tried this image myself and being disappointed enough with my results as to not want to post them, how'd you arrive at your results? you seem to have a real knack on this type of image. i've seen many of discolored, faded, stained, oddball colors type pieces you've worked on and i'm always in awe. so, cough it up, girl; what's the secret here? i dont need the full workflow and i know some of your techniques, but what did you do here in general?

craig

Hello!
First, sory for my poor english language. I'm working to this photo restoration and my result is probably not very good. I want some explanations, pls.
Regards.
Dan