May 05 Contest Discussion

[MargaretM]

By Duv - Which makes me wonder how a monkey throwing paint on a canvas can truly be called Art.

Depends though - because if other monkeys bond emotionally with the messy canvas I guess that's art in monkey world. My authority is Tolstoy. I know - enough already. What forum is this again??

[Duv]

Originally Posted by MargaretM

Depends though - because if other monkeys bond emotionally with the messy canvas I guess that's art in monkey world. My authority is Tolstoy. I know - enough already. What forum is this again??

And of course if they sell their art, that would be Monkey Business.

Dave

[phillip6653]

I just found this site and this is my first time doing this but I thought I would give it a try.

[soleah]

This one is quite difficult for me, but here it is.

[chrishoggy]

Can someone move soleah entry over to the correct thread, or it will be missed in the voting

[Flora]

Only Doug or T Paul can do that ....

... Fact is the May Contest Thread was closed Yesterday 22-5 ... as specified at the beginning ....

Originally Posted by T Paul

THE RULES:
1. Contest will run from 1 May to 22 May 2005. Deadline for entries is 5pm EDT 22 May 2005.

[chrishoggy]

LOL, didn't spot the date thought it was in time
Never mind, tis still a gr8 effort
Shame you didn't get it in within the limit soleah as it would have been a front runner in my opinion

[Flora]

Originally Posted by chrishoggy

..... as it would have been a front runner in my opinion

In mine too!!!!!
Great job Soleah!!!! ...

[Jaime]

I agree too with Chrishoggy and Flora. You did a great job of restoration Soleah.

[soleah]

It's ok. Rules are rules.

Actually, I was undecided whether to join the contest or not. My previous attempt looked too muddy after spending hours on it, I gave up weeks ago. I was sidetracked with something else and then , a simple idea hit me. That is, after the deadline, which I thought was on the 23rd. Sorry, if I confused anybody with my late post.

Chris, Flora, Jaime: Thank you for the great feedback. It's very encouraging. To be recognized by a group of talented "artists", that's something to me.

I still want to learn how the others did it, especially on the clothes. That's the one that stumped me.

[Kraellin]

soleah,

very nice.

the one thing folks are quite critical of in the voting so far, is the baby's eyes, and i think you missed here a bit. from everything i could tell, the baby is looking the same way its head is turned. you've got them going the other way. if you look at the original again, before correcting for the tear, you can make out most of her right eye and it's very distinctly looking to her left front. i think it was suchvy that did the same thing and if i remember correctly, this is why he didnt make my top 5.

but, you would have made my top 10 for sure. after that, i'd have had to compare each top 10 to each other to determine it further. but overall, a very nice piece!

now, for everyone else, i'm curious as to the voting and voting comments and original criteria of this contest. this is a restore work. we're to bring the picture back to its original state. now, what i'm curious about is, are folks voting on the basis of bringing this piece back to a good condition for present time, or, are they voting based on how the original looked WHEN IT WAS ACTUALLY TAKEN? these would be quite different effects. bringing it back to its original state would mean back to the state it was in when the photographer or lab assistant or whomever, first developed the negative and then the print, NOT how it would look today if it had been preserved well. you'd still see aging effects in that case, fading, discoloration and so on. so, i'm curious as to what folks think it looked like back when it was first taken. did photos come out only in sepia tones back then? was the background truly that faded at the time it was taken? was the carpet already worn out at the time the photographer opened his shutter? things like that.

K.

[soleah]

Thanks, Kraellin.

The baby is indeed looking at her left. From what I could make out of the photo, she's also round-eyed and not squinting like the boy.

It's a matter of sacrificing one detail for another. I'm sure succhy must have done the same. (Excellent restoration, by the way! )

Either way, would be fine. A combination of both would even be better.

Now, I do believe that this photo was originally printed in black and white. However, I find adding back some of the "antique" or "sephia" colorization gives a nostalgic/historic feel to the photo. This is vintage after all.

[cazubi]

I think your restoration was beautiful soleah. One question...why do you think that the photo was originally black and white?. Many of the vintage photos that I have been looking at are sepia toned, and I understand that this color was common around the turn of the century. When restoring, is there some way to know what tone to make the photo?

Most photos have a paper texture, and I was wondering how much of that should be kept in a restoration, or should it be completely smoothed out?

Cathy

[Jaime]

Originally Posted by cazubi

One question...why do you think that the photo was originally black and white?. Many of the vintage photos that I have been looking at are sepia toned, and I understand that this color was common around the turn of the century. When restoring, is there some way to know what tone to make the photo?

The sepia toning in vintage photos was not always intended. Original black and white albumen prints tends to yellowing and fading as a chemical deterioration due to the age. However many albumen prints were intentionally toned by the photographer.

[cazubi]

Originally Posted by Jaime

The sepia toning in vintage photos was not always intended. Original black and white albumen prints tends to yellowing and fading as a chemical deterioration due to the age. However many albumen prints were intentionally toned by the photographer.

When analyzing a photo for restoration,and it is not specified by a client, how do you determine what color it should be?

Cathy

[Jaime]

Originally Posted by cazubi

When analyzing a photo for restoration,and it is not specified by a client, how do you determine what color it should be?

Cathy

Hi Cathi,

Due to the nature of the deterioration albumen prints, I think is not always easy to determine if the original was toned or not. Although grays blacks albumen prints were not uncommon, the fact is most of the albumen prints were toned. Probably the picture of the contest was originally toned.

[cazubi]

Thanks Jaime. I think I will study up a bit. I think it is interesting.

Cathy

[Flora]

CONGRATULATIONS to Caitlin!!!!

Well done to all who partecipated in this contest!!!

[Caitlin]

Wow! Thanks so much everyone. It was such a tough restoration, and I won't pretent that I didn't have to put quite a lot of work into this one! I've had a couple of requests to detail some of my steps, so I'll try to post that when I get some time to write it up this weekend.

Thanks again, and congrats to everyone else who participated. (I think just entering this one you deserve an award! )

[MargaretM]

Yes - good work everyone and especially the top five and Caitlin. The differences in the entries were very interesting! I found the clothes the most difficult.
Margaret.

[cazubi]

Congratulations Caitlin, and the rest who placed. It was a hard one. I really enjoyed the challenge, and I think everyone who participated did a great job.

Cathy

[Jaime]

Congratulations to Caitlin and to the rest of the winners! Great jobs of restorations.

[Caitlin]

I promised I would detail some of the steps I used in restoring the kids. I really hope some others can detail their step in this contest, and future ones - as I know I learn heaps reading how others tackle these challenges!

I started with the standard - a levels adjustment and hue/saturation adjustment layers.

I actually had to restart at one point a fair way into the restore, as I wasn’t happy with my join of the two halves of the picture, but once I was happy with that and merged the two halves, I sharpened the whole image with USM (I may have overdone this slightly.)

Then a duplicate layer with a fairly strong Dust and Scratches layer. Flora’s explanation of the best way to uses D&S in another thread was a revelation to me – and I really used it to advantage in this restore. I selectively erased that on a layer mask to reveal the finer details of face, edges of clothing, lace work etc from the layer beneath.

The rest was largely laborious hand retouching with clone, and heal tools on a cleanup layer (or several in fact)

I got my baby eyes and boys hand from the photo collection at Library of Congress by searching for children with a similar ‘look’. I thought the baby’s eyes were good as they had a similar shape to the other children’s – rather than being too round. I know that a criticism that some people had of a few of the restorations was that the baby was looking the wrong way, and in fact mine was too until the last moment. A family member pointed it out to me, so a quick flip and a bit of a tweak got them right.

I found the children’s clothing the hardest to deal with, and tried a variety of ways to get detail into the baby’s dress, none of which I was happy with. I settled on some very subtle grey shadow areas, and rebuilding some of the lace detail (with the clone tool, with reduced opacity) I tried not to add too much detail that I wasn’t confident was originally there – so the waistcoat of the girl I felt I could see a hint of, though I can’t be certain it wasn’t dirt.

The final step was a run through Neat Image – I was amazed how well it cleaned up the final result, without impacting noticably on the detail.

I gave up on this early on, but a week before the close decided to give it another go. I don’t know how long I spent on it – but it was quite a lot!

I’m curious TPaul – where did this photo come from? Is it anonymous or relatives of a member here?

Attached is a screenshot of my Dust & Scratches layer, and a version just before some final cleanup and Neat Image. Nb. The other layers in the Dust & Scratches image were not my final, as I resaved as a new file before proceeding to my next stage.

[Kraellin]

congratulations caitlin! and to all who entered. it was a very difficult piece.

now why do i feel like i just completed my final exams at school and only got a C+? it was quite fascinating watching the entries come in and seeing how each had treated this area or that. and if i were re-doing it i'd take some quite different actions than before. and i think that's the main point here....learning. so, for me, no matter how i placed in the contest, i still won in the sense of having gained something. so, thanks to our hosts and thanks to all who entered!

and yes, i'd be curious in knowing where this photo came from also

K.

[T Paul]

The photo was one I bought in an antique store from a bin of old photos. When I go through an antique store I always check through their photos; they can be an excellent source of old photos to practice your retouching skills on.

The photo was fairly faded and had been torn and glued to the back of cardboard...hence the slight shift that needed correcting. There was no information on the back so I don't know who they are.

[T Paul]

Caitlin,

KUDOS for sharing your steps! It's nice to see how different people approach an image and the steps they take to accomplish the final result! Thanks!!

[soleah]

Congratulations, Caitlin! You deserve #1!

[MargaretM]

Thanks Caitlin for sharing your steps. I found it interesting that you used USM early on and finished with Neat Image. I usually do these in the opposite order and almost always END with USM, although in this case I didn't sharpen at all. (ran out of spare time).
Thanks again - Margaret.

[MargaretM]

I hate to revisit the monkey business discussion but TOO funny, Duv - this was in today's paper.
Jun 20, 4:47 PM EDT

Paintings by chimpanzee outsell Warhol

LONDON (AP) -- Monkey business proved to be lucrative Monday when paintings by Congo the chimpanzee sold at auction for more than $25,000.

The three abstract, tempera paintings were auctioned at Bonhams in London alongside works by impressionist master Renoir and pop art provocateur Andy Warhol.

But while Warhol's and Renoir's work didn't sell, bidders lavished attention on Congo's paintings.

An American bidder named Howard Hong, who described himself as an "enthusiast of modern and contemporary painting," purchased the lot of paintings for $26,352, including a buyer's premium.

The sale price surpassed predictions that priced the paintings between $1,000-$1,500.

"We had no idea what these things were worth," said Howard Rutkowski, director of modern and contemporary art at Bonhams. "We just put them in for our own amusement."

Congo, born in 1954, produced about 400 drawings and paintings between ages 2 and 4. He died in 1964 of tuberculosis.

His artwork provoked reactions ranging from scorn to skepticism among critics of the time, but Pablo Picasso is reported to have hung a Congo painting on his studio wall after receiving it as a gift.

"There's no precedent for things like this having been sold before," Rutkowski said.

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