I have been working on this ladies headhot and after using the scratches and noise filter I found it to be a little grainy so I ran it through Neat Image, and now she looks like her face is cracking and falling apart.

I have also noticed this in another photo I am working on, except that photo has the face cracked looking already. I know I could use a gausian blur, but do you think that takes the aged feel away from it too much?

Thanks in advance. Also, lemm know what changes you I should make on the picture.

I have posted a larger version on my site so you can see the detail, the jpg on the site is 257k or so, I just could not shrink an 8 x 10 headshot down to 100k very well

LARGER FILE SIZE (http://fazools.com/who/neatimage-2.jpg)

Fazool,

I looked at the image posted on your site and it seems the "cracking and falling apart" is either the skin or paper texture.

I made a selection of the face only and applied Neat image to that only. On the layer mask I painted back in the eyes, nostrils and mouth. I think that may be what you are looking for.

I noticed that the highlight area on her right side, (camera left), by the corner of her mouth and along side the nose, is probably a bit too "hot." With the eyedropper it measured 2% on Grayscale and near 255 on RGB. You may want to tone that down a bit.

Nice job on the cracks and creases.

k

Lemme try that then. In neat image, do you ever find the need to tinker with the fine tuning adjustments? I am getting used to it, I had tried out noiseware, noise ninja and a degrain plugin, but settled on neat image.

So far I have been using the automated setups pretty much, aside from setting my own sample areas.

I will try out your advice on doing it as a mask though.

Thanks

Hi Fazools

Perhaps you could try the quick de-grunge procedure located in the tutorial section. It seems to remove some of the streaking and still leave detail.

By the way great work!!

Butch

Here is another way

Make two duplicate layers, name them lighten and darken and change their blendmodes to the same. Then with the move tool selected nudge one of the layers down a few and to the left or right. Then hide all and paint the area to darken or lighten... then do the same with the other layer.

Butch

Thanks!! I will try that one