While studying Katrin Eisman's restoration & retouching book, I tried to apply some of her techniques to the attached photo (from Library of Congress, Chicago's 1893 world's fair). The buildings in the background are very faded compared to the foreground. I did a threshold layer to determine black and white points, applied levels and curves adjustment layers but as the background became more pronounced, the foreground was way too pronounced so I masked out the foreground to try to get the picture more uniform. I'm just wondering if there's a better way and if this could be improved further. Thanks.

Masking would definitely do it, but a gradient in overlay blending mode could also do the job but would not be as defined and also brings out a lot of other problems in the picture, but once again this could be masked. Another method you could use is to create a new layer, place it in overlay blending mode and use a black paint brush to bring out the background. To erase mistakes you use the 50% grey brush

I like that a lot better, Cassidy. I worked on this yesterday and honestly don't remember everything else that I tried, I mean, I thought that I did experiment with the gradient overlay, but it didn't seem to come out as well as yours, probably needed to change the opacity and blending of the layer. I'm not worried about correcting the noise in the background, just concentrating on the background buildings for now. Thanks so much for your input!

Susie, make sure your gradient is black to transparent, not black to white

Cassidy, thanks, that probably explains what I did wrong with the gradient layer, I'm sure that I did it as black to white! Thank you! :)

I had a quick go just selecting the faded area and dragging the brightness & contrast curves down.

I think some masking & selective D&B would help.

Been practicing using channel blending and calculations to make masks, and managed to do this one without using any other kind - though it took two curves layers to get the tones within shouting distance of balanced. in the end everything was too dark so I used a low opacity adjustment layer set to screen mode to tone it back a tad. Made for an enjoyable afternoon.

<C>

Susie, for my taste, I really like the one that you did. Even the faded background to the top left. It seems to just fit the scene and gives a feeling of fading into the fog. I wouldn't change it at all.

Lurch, yours look pretty good too, but I think it's a bit too much in the shadows. Of course, that just my humble opinion.

Dave, your comment made me so happy.

Tassie, Chillin and Carole, I think that everyone achieved what I had set out to do, bring out the background and I was amazed at the different avenues that everyone took. When does a person know when to stop? I mean, maybe what I like isn't what someone else likes, is there a 'general' rule of thumb when it comes to restoring?

My result is kind of like my chili recipe, I want to keep trying to do better :). Here's my re-do.

Everyone did a great job. Susie, it's just my personal taste, but I prefer yours the most.
Regards, Murray

Wonderful job there susie

Susie, I too like yours best (the second one). How does one know when to stop? Bedtime :D

<C>

Thanks MrMonday, Cassidy and Carole, I really learned a lot through everyone's help!

Carole, you're so funny,(the bedtime comment) :lol: but it's so TRUE!!

Now... off to the next section of Katrin's book...

hi susie,

taking your first picture you did, all i did was adjust the contrast/brightness. i lowered the brightness to -25 and raised the contrast to +25. this added a little more definition.

i then copy merged all layers and saved to a new layer. on that new layer i used psp's 'clarify' at full strength. this is somewhat similar to the shadows/midtones/highlights filter but does it more automatically.

now, i didnt correct the sky. it shld be. you could go two ways on that, either paint in some clouds or simply white it all.

so, your original work was fine; it just wasnt quite finished yet.

i also notice on the second image you posted that it tends towards the bright. you might want to check your gamma and brightness/contrast settings on your monitor. you could be seeing it one way while everyone else is seeing it another.

Oh Craig, you said the scariest thing '..monitor calibration' :eek: brings back nightmares of the last time I calibrated my monitor to my printer, ooooo, what a nightmare, especially since all that I'm using is Adobe Gamma and my eyeballs.

But, looking at my 1st try and my 2nd, I do see a big difference in the brightness/contrast within the 2nd one, I thought that it was mainly because the sky was pretty much whited out. Originally, I had thought that my 1st try was way washed out, but comparing the two, I agree, my 2nd pic appears brighter, but I'm still wondering if it's because I've got no sky. I won't be able to get to it until this afternoon, or tomorrow, but, I'm going to add some tone and clouds to the sky background and see if that doesn't help. I'm hoping that it does because calibrating my monitor is scary, scary stuff.... right now, I can determine all of the stages in RPs step wedge logo and that's a good sign :o:, right?

hi susie,

well, if you can see all the steps in the grayscale chart on RP, that's a good first step. also, i wasnt referring to calibrating printer to monitor. i just meant the monitor itself. if you dont have any hardware to do this with, try one of the links in the library that takes you to a software/online monitor calibration page. the one on RP is a bit too simplistic to really do a decent job.

also, i dont think you needed to white out the sky like in the 2nd one. and yes, it does tend to make everything look brighter. there is some natural sky in the image. a bit of clone painting can make it look pretty decent or maybe clone and a bit of airbrushing.

i started this last night and didnt finish, so here it is now. it's pretty much my standard fare of contrasting with brightness/contrast layer, clarify, fade correction, clone, push, and airbrush.

Craig, that looks really great.

I had a few minutes to work on this again. I took my 2nd picture, added a gray fill layer 50% opacity and masked out everything except the sky and then added some clouds, I also re-adjusted my curves layer.

This morning I spent some time reading threads regarding monitor calibrating and made some adjustments. I'm still not sure if I'm seeing things the way everyone else is seeing them which is not good. Do the changes to my 2nd picture make the picture appear more balanced? It looks good to me, but my previous versions seem very 'contrasty' now.

Thanks!