Hello All,

After spending some hours researching about repairing pictures I found this website. The story is that I took a picture with Amy Grant whom I've been a fan for a long time now but guess what? Murphy's law! The camera got defective and the result is a shame. Here is a link to the original picture and a modified one that I made with photoshop. Please, any help, if you can, would be greatly appreciated! Thank you so much,

Rob

Here is the link to the pictures:
http://www.bossnova.net/picture

Would you settle for a black and white? The green channel is the best to work with.

Shame you just couldn't re-shoot! :nod:


Trying to lift the exposure/brightness of this image was difficult because the noise levels were so bad. I have no third party noise reduction plug-ins at the mo, and so used PSCS2's built in filters. Unfortunately, I found that for them to have any affect at all, I needed to really push them to extremes, resulting in an image that looked perhaps 'more painterly' than like a straight photograph. Personally, I quite like the effect, but ymmv.

What I did was duplicate the original onto a new layer, and then run it through a series of adjustments: levels, curves, colour balance, hue/sat, brightness/contrast, etc - tweaking this and playing with that till I got something I could live with.

I then ran noise reduction TO THE MAX, several times, followed by a couple of high pass layers (set to overlay) to try to bring back a little detail without also bringing back too much noise.

I used the blur tool to blur the background a bit more.

I used the sharpen tool a little (and very selectively) on the eyes, mouth, etc.

I decided to stop there, in case I really blew it! :D


Anyway, hope you like what I've done. It's not very natural looking, but it might pass as a portrait painting in the Louvre, or something. ;) :cool:

Would you settle for a black and white? The green channel is the best to work with.

Hey, the black and white looks good!


What did you use for noise reduction?

I use NeatImage (the free version) for noise reduction. I might have pushed it a little to hard on the picture. http://www.neatimage.com/download.html

I also used the degrunge tutorial written by byRO
http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/?m=show&id=213

I only used the green channel

There's a free version of Neat Image?! :bow: Exxxcellent!


Thanks for the links and tips! :rainbow:

Hi Rob,

Murphy's Law stinks! I had a go at your photo and here is what I came up with and my steps.

1. Ran a levels adjustment layer to make the image a lot less dark.
2. Ran Neat Image to reduce some of the noise.
3. Converted the image to LAB mode.
4. Ran a Gaussian Blur on the a channel (about 9.6 so that the noise blurred)
5. Ran a Gaussian Blur on the b channel (also about 9.6)
6. Called it good but more adjustments could be made as needed.

If you want more of my settings let me know.

I copied the layer using screen blending mode. Then used a levels adjustment layer. I increased the saturation and then ran neat image on it.

Awork.

1: auto level.
2: 2 duplicate layer, option screen and merge visible.
3: shadows / highlight
4: duplicate layer. and naiseware plug- portrait mode.
5: 2. layer guasian blur hight.
6: 1. layer opasity 50-60
7: Merge visible.
8: curves.

Just another try.


Beth

I used Lab color, Levels on channels a and b, convert to RGB, curves adjustment layers, selective color, neat img.
Dan

Oltenius, you may need to check your monitor for calibration, as most of your images appear over bright, I calibrated my monitor last night, much to my horror

Oltenius, you may need to check your monitor for calibration, as most of your images appear over bright, I calibrated my monitor last night, much to my horror
Cassidy, Thanks for you comment.
I think my monitor is calibrate! I'm waiting for other opinion before to do another calibration, pls.
Dan

Used Polaroid's Scratch/Dust removal and then Imagenomic noise removal, followed by Selective Color adjustment layer to work on blacks and skin color. I added a bit of color (may not be appropriate hue) to her hair.

Must have been exciting to have photo with Amy Grant!

Hi Rob.
Welcome to Retouch Pro.

I think I did the same as everyone else but I started from the Black channel instead of the green, I also added some colour to the background.
Just ask if you need more info

Hope this helps.


Dan.
Your image may be a little too light. The highlights look OK but the shadows look a little too light. I can see Amy’s collar and the man’s V neck on his pullover. Maybe this was deliberate but it also highlights the noise in the shadows. It looks better on my monitor if levels are adjusted to 40 1.00 255

Ken.

Ken, Thanks!
My monitor isn't a 'new generation'. I have an IBM G74, 17''. I tested and calibrated this monitor with 2 test programs and everything it's OK! The setting of my Asus is sRGB. color profile. Probably you have a LCD monitor and maby could be a difference to view my image, I think!
Dan

Hi,

Rob,

welcome to RP!! :pleased:

Great job everybody!! :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

I had a go too:

* To brighten up the image I duplicated the background, inverted the duplicate (Ctrl+I) and set its blending to Soft Light.

* Used Levels and Curves on the shadows for further brightening and overall for contrast.

* Selective Colors to enhance the faded colours.

Noise? ... I really don't understand what everybody is talking about... :confused: .... there was absolutely no noise at all!!! .... Only kidding ... the noise was terrible!! :eek: :eek:

* Used Neat Image (noise removal software which can be downloaded free here (http://www.neatimage.com/download.html))

welcome to RP, RobMor.

we've got quite an array of entries here on your pic. so, why not one more :)

i ran 3 adjustment layers first, just to get things in the ballpark a bit more, curves, brightness/contrast, and levels. i also used a screen blend on the levels layera and a soft light blend on the curves. i also went down to the duplicated original layer and ran a light to medium digital camera noise removal.

i then copy merged the entire thng and made this a new layer.

on this new layer i ran another bright/contrast adjustment layer and selected the dark areas at 3% tolerance, continuous. on this selection/mask, i painted the mask lighter and darker to give some differences between amy's clothing and yours and a few other areas. there was no color here to speak of, so i just treated it as a gray scale.

i then inverted the mask/selection and did the same thing with this selection. this was all to bring out some detail and contrast.

there really wasnt a lot to work with here but thankfully, the faces were in decent shape. i could have done more clean up on the faces to remove a bit of that grain, but in this particular case, it seemed better to just remove a tiny bit and not get into the 'noise removal blur' that happens a lot with noise removers of any kind.

as for this statement: The camera got defective and the result is a shame. i would seriously look into that. opportunities like a shoot with amy grant dont come around very often, at least not for most of us. and whether it was the camera or the operator, i'd track down the reason and fix it. ;)

craig