I haven't done a photo of this magnitude before and it did take time, but time just flew once I got started. Really I spent 4 hours on it and could have spent more but you have to know when to stop.
Of course as everyone knows, Cloning and patch tool are the most used tools in this project. Some rebuilding of the buildings took place with roof shingles and the smoke house to the left. At some point I used levels and brightness and contrast to try for a better look and it helped a lot. I put some clouds in the sky to break up the harsh light of the summer sky. Now to the most challenging part reworking the dad in the scene. Really wasn't difficult I had a picture of my great grandfather that fit just fine. I presume the original dad was bearded but it could have been a bandana around hi neck. Anyway I opted not to include beard and now this pic has a little of my family in it too. Of course if this was for a customer that would have not been the case. The final decision to tint with sepia was tried and it looked good however I'm not including it in this post.
PLEASE I BEG YOU -- judge my efforts. Iam new to this and very self taught and need comments on how to work better. I still have trouble remembering to create layers. I get so caught up in my work I just forget. So I shall wait for your comments bad and good I hope.

bcarll

BCarll,

Overall, I think you did a great job. The photo was obviously in bad shape, and you had a lot of work to do. I know you have been staring at the image for hours upon hours, so it's nice to have a fresh look at things.

The first thing I will say is that that your great grandfather popped right out at me immediately. I think he is more contrasty than the rest of the folks in the photo, so you may tune that down just a bit, especially the hat. Try to remember what the light source is and use that as a guide to put some highlights and shadows on him, but not as black as they are now.

The next thing that drew my attention was the soft edges on the top of the tree. You have really sharpened some of the interior of the tree, so the disparity there is noticable. Same thing with the chimny, clean up that edge.

Lastly, I would say that the ground needs some work. It looks too "cloned", and you actually cloned over some really nice texture that had no problems. I would recommend using the patch tool with some large selections instead, or probably even better, would be to find another photo with similar ground cover at a similar perspective and patch or clone from there.

I know that my last three paragraphs were purely criticism, but don't get me wrong, you did a great job!

-Guy Thomas

EDIT: On a second look, you may think about sizing your great grandfathers head down just a bit. The proportions may have also been a factor in drawing my attenetion.

I did a bit of work on your photo to show you what I meant regarding the ground. You want to try to stay away from any real noticeable patterns.

Also, upon closer inspection, it looked to me that the big dark spot on the ground was some sort of damage rather than darker soil, shadow, etc. So I reduced that as well.

I did the work by first using the clone tool to fill in areas that had been lost to the damage with the basic color of the ground, then I went back with the patch tool and made irregular selections and patched in good ground texture from various other parts of the image.

-Guy

Yes, not enough people take time to comment on the challenges.
http://www.retouchpro.com/challenges/showgallery.php/cat/616

Very nice >>

Thanks for your comments Guy. No need to apologize for being critical --I asked for it. Before I submitted my photo I too found the faults that you did so it makes me feel good to know my eyes are still keen to what needs to be done. I showed my wife the pic before I sent it and pointed out the shadows on the ground and said they didn't quite look right. The tree got by me and I think it was caused when I put in the clouds. And yes my grandpa is not the same contrast as the rest as the folks in the picture. Do think he is too in focus and needs to be blurred or have some noise added? Looking at it now after your comment I still am not sure if it his size or contrast. Will work on it later and see. I love doing this work and would like to be doing it for profit and less for a hobby so I guess I need to practice, practice, and I guess you never completely know it all at this craft. Once again thanks for looking at my work.
Thanks to others too that have and will comment.

bcarll

I don't think you need to blur grandpa, Looking at it fresh again today, I am pretty convinced that a reduction in the contrast and size should really do the trick.