This is the highschool graduation picture on my mother. The original, as you can see, is pretty beat up. I got a good percentage of it fixed but I probably did it all the wrong way. I used a channel mixer to get it back to grayscale using the blue channel. That took out the majority of the splotches on her skin but as you can see, they are still there. I used levels to build the contrast up to where it should be. I used a mask to replace the background. I used the mask again with a gaussian blur and painted around the areas that I didn't want to be effected with the blur. That's about it. I couldn't figure out how to totally remove the blotches though. They are most prominent on her neck. You can see that on the original. It was only scanned at 600x600. I don't have a photo scanner yet. Anyhoo, any critiques of what I did do and help on what I didn't do would be appreciated. Thanks in advance.

I think you did an excellent job in getting rid of the blotches and other scratches/spots. There is a tad too much blur for my liking though so I have attached an almost identical version to yours but with more focus around the eyes and mouth. And you are quite right - the best channel was the blue channel, so I got rid of the other two and made a grayscale from the blue. I think that is the way to go with this image. As for the white spots in the hair...I think the best method is to set the clone brush to darken and a low opacity (say 25). That way you only affect the light pixels you want to darken and don't change any other information in the darker areas. Also I didn't think it necessary to mask out the background...it can easily be cloned smooth. If you really want to do that then you will have to be careful with the finer hair otherwise it could look too 'cut out'.

That was very nice. I did go kinda overboard with the blur but the original has a texture on the print that I found impossible to get rid of. Your background is much better. Ideally I'd like to do that instead of inserting a new one like I did. As far as the white spots and other things that were all over the place I just used the dust & scratches filter. I initially went after it with the spot healing brush but there are so many spots that I tried the filter and it seemed to work. Your work on the background must have taken some time to clone it all out. Did you just use a blur tool to avoid any sharp transitions? My main issue is to remove the texture which I found difficult to do without the serious blur and get rid of the splotches 100% witch it seems neither of us could accomplish. Using the blue channel, while effective, is not perfect. Your version is quite nice though. Thanks!

BTW, in both of ours, the highlight on her forehead is blown out. I'd like to avoid that as well.

You should remove that big hot spot on her head

That's what I was referring to in the previous post.

thought i'd go the extra mile here...

craig

I think that was an extra couple miles. I'm in awe. I'd love to know how you went about that. The steps that you took etc. My mother actually wants to keep it in black and white actually but when I show her this she may change her mind. If you would like I'd love to here from you on IM. I get a number of them if you are interested in that. I see that you masked her out but I'm not sure if you actually replaced the background or not. Simply posting that work without any commentary is just playing games with me. lol

On a different note, I'm still interested in getting rid of the blotches completely, which no one has been able to do. I can still see them in your color job even. I'm also interested in a good way to get rid of the print texture. The way that I did it was less than appealing.

Great job Craig. I like it. Imann, actually the background was very easy to do. The whole image took about 15 minutes. First I used a small soft clone brush set to lighten to get rid of the dark spots because there were fewer of them. Then I switched to a large (hardness 0) brush set to darken and swirled it around the background. I then sharpened the image using High Pass (set to 3) and finally put it through Neat Image. Neat image blurred out the background perfectly without affecting any detail in the foreground. That highlight on the forehead is easily fixed by going back to your levels layer and with a very soft black brush set to a low opacity just darkening the layer mask. As for the splotches on the neck (which aren't really that obvious anymore) they, once again, can be sorted out with the clone tool set to darken. It really is one of my favorite methods as you lose less detail that way.

Hi Imann08.

I think you did a great job.
I started from the blue channel as well

Ken

Syd, sorry I missed that explanation for the blotches on the first post you made. I was interested in why you chose to use neatimage last after the highpass instead of first before your corrections? I've just gotten the idea that you should take out the noise first and not last. I am interested in seeing how your move of using the clone tool set to darken or lighten. I've never used a blending mode with the clone tool. I'm gonna work on it tonight and see what happens.

Cameraken, another nice nice job of colorizing the image. Very impressed. As you can tell from my version, I am just starting out and hadn't bothered with that process as of yet. I figure you got to get the other basic stuff down before you start messing with colorizing images. Thanks for the nice words but looking at the others it is becoming clear where I am. :(

Your mother has beautiful eyes! Are they blue or green? She also has a smile that warms the heart.

I hope you didn't mind my working on her photo. I enjoy color photos but there is something about black and whites.

Thank you for sharing your family.

Fixed the obvious spots with clone or healing tool. All the rest (including the background) was done with duplicate layers lightened or darkened using curves and gaussian blur, masked out and painted back in with a very soft white brush. Sharpening with a high pass filtered layer applied using soft light blending. I was not sure how "plastic" you wanted the image, so I retained most of the film grain and texture where it did not intrude.

imann,

thank you. and thanks, syd :)

i started by using a new plugin that was made by folks on this site, stroker, cameraken, byro and myself. it divides the grays into 32 bands and allows you to darken or lighten each band. i selected different regions of the image and worked on each with the plugin, taking down the highs on her forehead, darkening the fading on her dress, taking out the spots in the background and so on. even the neck/chest and face were done. this, by itself, took out some of the blotches.

the rest was mostly done using the push tool to smooth a few transitions the plugin didnt get.

after that, i set a blend mode on the layer (i forget which now) to blend with the original background layer. this gave me a nice black and white. there was also a curves adjustment layer and a contrast/brightness adjustment layer. these were needed to bring back a little contrast, mostly to her face where the plugin had made it a bit too pasty.

copy merge and paste to new layer.

then the painting. new blank layer above the copy merge. airbrushed in some tones to get a reasonable skin color and then added a manual color correction to this. set another blend mode to lower the saturation a bit and tweak it to a sort of 50's studio print painting. erased where the eyes are and the lips (remember, this is the airbrushed layer, so we want to remove any stray airbrushing from those areas). hand painted the lips and eyes. hope they are blue :)

that's the basics of it. there were lots of little steps and to try to write that all up would take longer than the fixing of the image.

not quite sure where you're seeing all these splotches. i did do some hand work on the neck/chest and face to try to smooth all that out, mostly with the push tool. but if you feel there's still some there, a light smudge would probably handle it nicely.

there are other ways to fix the original besides this 32 band gray plugin. i mostly wanted to see if the thing actually worked well enough to use as a retouching tool.

and there are others here who do colorizing far better than me. i think i went a bit too light on the application of paint. and if you're interested, i'm sure there are tutorials on how to do this.

so, glad you like it :)

craig

ken,

very nice. is that using your new skin colorizer?

craig

Klassylady: Thanks for the compliment, I'm sure my mother will turn bright red when she see's it. Unfortunately, Kraellin will have to alter his color image when this happens. LOL My mom's eyes are actually green although sometimes they can look a little blue depending on what she is wearing. Mostly green though. I put the image on here so you could work on it. I was interested to see what I did wrong and what could be obtained. Thanks a bunch.

Veryweird: That was nice. The blotches are still there but the texture was removed nicely. The background also looks very good. Thanks.

craig: I showed my mother your work and she now wants me to do it in color. Thanks a lot (sarcasm)! lol As far as I'm concerned there is always someone better but I thought your job was very very good and I was totally impressed.

To all who responded: Thanks a bunch for all your input I'm going to take that and see if I can get something better. I'll post what I get here soon. I notice that people are using high pass instead of the unsharp mask to sharpen the image. Is there a reason in this case to chose one over the other? With the duplicating of the image to eliminate the background problems, I am assuming that a mask was needed in those cases. Am I correct? Again, thanks a bunch. I am always amazed at how nice this board is and how helpful it is. I can always be sure that I will get a number of replies to all my posts and that makes me want to come back. Truly an original forum as many of you who have been on a graphic design forum know.

thank you, imann :)

i think ken's colors are a bit better; at least a bit richer. but maybe my monitor is off...or yours...or kens ;)

craig

The more I look at it the more I have to agree. I think that it is because I saw yours first that I like it so much. I know that with the other work that I do outside of photo R&R I like to put something down for a day or sleep on it and then look at it again with a fresh mind. It often helps me see things that I didn't see before or like things that I didn't like before or visa versa. I'm sure you are well aware of that.

Thanks Craig

Yes. I used my code. I just added a little more red to the lips, cheeks and eyelids.
Once you see the shape of the skin graphs I made it’s really quite easy to replicate with curves. My code is just quicker.

Yours looks great too. And probably more in keeping with the age of the picture. Mine is more saturated. But both are correct skintones.

imann08. If you add a hue/sat adjustment to my picture and lower the saturation then my picture will be very similar to Craigs. It’s just personal choice.

Ken.

imann,
yup, walk away for a while and take a new look later on. anything that gets you to look at the thing in a new unit of time, with 'fresh' eyes, tends to work.

ken,
i hadnt thought about your code relative to curves, but now that you mention it, yes, that graph in the filtermeister thread does look like a curves graph. (and thanks :) ).

oh, and imann, i did take another look at the image. you're right; there's still blotchiness there. use a light opacity 'push' or 'smudge' on it to blend and bleed those out.

craig

Here's another attempt. I took Syd's recommendation for the background but I continued to use surface blur pretty heavy with a mask to get rid of the print texture. I also used high pass which I hadn't used last time. I don't think it's nearly as blurred as last time and there's no mask to create a totally new background so it doesn't look cut out like it did last time. Anyways, tell me what you think. I think it's an improvement.

Craig: I have some info on coloring an image but I'm a little confused as to how you colored the forehead that is visible through the hair that comes down over it. You obviously didn't color each strand of hair so what did you do?

that's looking good, imann.

for the forehead, i painted pretty much the same as the rest of the face, but maybe a bit less. the blend modes will pick out the skin color from the dark hair. also, gausian blur and erasing can help. when i paint with the airbrush like this, i dont try to paint it exactly or even evenly. i rely on the gausian blur and erase to smudge things around and then erase the stuff that is 'outside the lines'. and even when i erase, i erase at a reduced opacity to give a more blended look.

you can get away with this because of how colors and shades tend to bleed into each other, even in the original images. hair near color is often shaded with the color it's near, just a bit. and the eye tends to do the rest. so, it's a bit of a cheat :)

craig

Thanks Craig. I thought everyone had forgotten about this thread. I'm working on a color job of the photo and will post it soon. I think it is turning out pretty well. Kind of surprised how easy the basis of it is. Of course, it takes a little to get from where I am to where it looks really realistic. Keep your eye out. I'd like to hear what you have to say when I post it. BTW, my name is Isaac

That's looking great Imann. A huge improvement the first one.

ok, isaac.

just sign your posts with your name and i'll remember; otherwise, forget it :)

craig

Ok, here it is. I am actually pleased with what I have accomplished so far. I am still working on it and trying to fine tune it with taking out some of the uneven color and such. The one thing that I really don't know what to do with right now is the plastic look to it. I think it is a bit too plastic looking. I think that may have had to do with the blurring that I did while I restored the black and white more than it had to do with the coloring though. Regardless, I was quite surprised I could get something this good done at this point. I really thought it would take a lot more work and practice and frustration. Anyways, take a look and tell me what you think. What is good and what is not.

Isaac

The minute I looked at my attached file I felt is was way too saturated. I took it down to an opacity of 60% and it looks better I think. At least it does in photoshop. It looks very different in photoshop at 300ppi compared to the one I attach to the forum at 72ppi.

My mom's eyes are actually green :)

looks pretty good. the skin color seems a bit off to me, though. and i actually like the first one better. skin color seems to be quite a topic of discussion around here, so i'll let others run the numbers for you (i just go by sight). and you can search on here for many topics of discussion about it.

'pasty' comes from two things, mostly... not enough texture and mostly, the colors are all too close to the same. the first one doesnt look pasty to me, but the second one, a bit.

craig

I know I actually said that my mom's eye's are green but I said screw it and just went with blue. She thinks that they are sort of blue so it's all good. The blue I used is overdoing it but so be it.

With these I only used one color for the skin so I think that may have a lot to do with it. I do think that how much I blurred the skin also is a factor though.

I'll need to mess around with how to properly add additional colors a mix and match the right colors.

I'm interested that you like the first one better and basically think the exactly oposite that I do with the two pictures. That damn subjectivity. :)

I am going to give you a pm so keep your eyes open. Thanks

Isaac