Two problems

[Mark Adams]

Attached is a picture of my former spouse. She passed away two years ago but when she was in her early twenties, she had this portrait taken. We all like this picture, but the only surviving copy we have is a 5 X 7 that got wet and until yesterday was stuck to a piece of glass in a picture frame.

I wet the print and let it sit overnight and was able to peel it off this morning. Unfortunately, prevous attempts to remove the print resulted in some damage to the lower 1/4 of the image and a spot on her left cheek. There is also a lot of what appears to be dust or small white fibers on the image.

I've scanned the image and repaired much of the damage, but her arm and left cheek are missing some color. Also, her hair is a solid black mass. The photo I scanned this from has much better color and contrast, and there are gold highlights visible in her hair that you may be able to pick up if you increase the brightness of the attached image.

I would like some tips on bringing those highlights back and dealing with the color problems on her cheek and arm. I'm working on a CRT and I know other problems can be present without actually showing up on this monitor, so if you see something else don't hesitate to say so. I'm not sure about the contrast of this image either.

I appreciate any input you folks have.

Mark

CORRECTION: I said that I was "working on a CRT". What I meant to say was that I am doing this on an LCD display. Also, this is a small version of a humongous (33MB) tiff that I'm working from. I can put a link to a large format tif in this thread if it would be helpful.

[Duv]

Thanks for sharing Mark. A lovely lady.

The arm and cheek can be fixed fairly well with tools like Healing, but I think the bigger problem is the damaged blue channel which may be the result of peeling from the glass, water or sunlight damage. I couldn't find the golden highlights on my monitor but her bangs are clearly blue. I didn't have much success correcting the image but hopefully Flora, Gary or others might be able to help you here. Good luck.

Dave

[Mark Adams]

Originally Posted by Duv

The arm and cheek can be fixed fairly well with tools like Healing, but I think the bigger problem is the damaged blue channel which may be the result of peeling from the glass, water or sunlight damage. I couldn't find the golden highlights on my monitor but her bangs are clearly blue. I didn't have much success correcting the image but hopefully Flora, Gary or others might be able to help you here. Good luck.

Hey Dave,

I'm working on the GIMP so I have no healing brush. I would like to know how I can fix it from scratch, if possible.

Also, I am surprised you can't see the highlights. Did you try boosting the brightness of the image? The blue channel looks okay to me. It's a little dark because I corrected a blue cast the image appeared to have after I scanned it. Then again, I don't know that much about this stuff.

I copied the image, desaturated it and inverted the tones on the attachment below. If you look closely (they're admittedly subtle) you can see dark whisps in her hair. These are the gold highlights. The data exists in the image. Now to my mind, I should be able to manipulate the image so that they appear more like the photo.

Anyway, thanks for looking at it. I appreciate your input and await more wisdom from the group here.

[Xaran]

I think it might help if you could post a link to a larger image - preferably before you did anything. It could be that what you have done/need to do needs to be done in a different order.

Christine

[Mark Adams]

Here is a link to a 2MB version of the image:


CJR Portrait_quarter-scale.TIF

It's cut down to 726 X 1026 pixels at 600 dpi. It's not a bad compromise between detail and manageable size. I can post a bigger one if need be.

Thanks.

[Xaran]

Mark,

Looking at the tif file you posted the highlights only seem to be visible (to me) in the blue channel, by darkening this channel to remove the blue cast you have wiped out the highlights. If you can darken this channel without darkening the highlights on the hair you should get a better result.

This channel also looks as if it could use a slight blur.

IN PSCS I duplicated the layer and desaturated to get rid of blue - masked everything but the hair, added a levels adjustment layer to lighten the highlights a bit more and again masked out everything but the hair, layer mode set to lighten.

Christine

[realaqu]

I tried to fix it tonight. but need more inputs to improve it.

realaqu

[Flora]

Hi everybody,

Mark,

No wonder everybody likes this picture .... a beautiful picture of a stunning woman .... so sorry about your loss....

Now, for what I did... (using the .TIF picture from your link)

I got nice results with her hair in different ways used separately just to see which was the best here (at least for me... ) : Shadows/Highlight (PS CS only!! ), Channel Mixer; Curves; Levels .... Curves and Levels were used to lift the shadows .. and that alone was a big help already .... The best result I got was with Shadows/Highlight (strongly decreasing the saturation) ... but for those working with previous versions of PS here is an accettable alternative:

Hair
Channel Mask

• Duplicated the Red Channel, the one with more contrast, further increased its contrast with the Levels, blurred it and selected the shadows.
  
  
• With the selection active, back to composite view and Layers, Ctrl+J copied the selection on its own Layer, working on the new Layer Ctrl+I to invert it and set the blending to Soft Light... That alone really makes a big difference already!!!
  
  
• The edges of the Mask are still a bit hard ... so ... working on your Soft Light Layer, G-blur it strongly (Radius=20 pixels) .... amazing, isn't it? ... The Mask edges have blended perfectly in and what was blurred during the procedure is now sharp again .... (I'm thinking of writing a Tutorial for an acceptable alternative to CS incredible 'Shadows/Highlight' ...)

After this, you can proceed with Levels, Curves, Brightness&Contrast to further lift shadows and enhance the highlights in her hair ... Using Layer Masks lets you apply the changes only where you want them .... See this Tutorial if you are not very familiar with them ....

For the colours, always with the help of Layer Masks, I tried everything until I was satisfied with the result .... Selective Colors, Hue&Saturation, Levels, Curves ... well, you name it ....

Hope this helps ....

Christine, realaqu,

great job!!!

[Legacy~Art]

What a beautiful lady, sorry of your loss Mark, i sure hope you get the picture fixed!!!

[Gary Richardson]

Hi Mark, had a quick play with the small image.

Duplicated image. Desaturated, Inverted, set blend mode to soft light, blurred with GB, adj opacity to about 65%. Applied layer mask, and masked all but skin and hair.

New layer, soft light, fill with 50% Grey. Using soft black/white brush at 5% opacity, paint to equalise tone on stained areas.

Clone layer, clone out small blemishes, then using clone tool at 35% opacity, clone to hide stain edges.

Colour layer, paint a little colour into stained areas, adj opacity of layer for effect.

Sorry didn't have time to do proper job on larger image.

[Vikki]

Beautiful save Flora!!
Only thing I would recommend is a little texture to the skin.

[soleah]

I like what you did, Flora.

I didn't think her hair was light until I saw your restoration.

[EbooksList]

Flora
very
good
job
!!!

[Mark Adams]

Yes, I think Flora has accomplished what I aim to do remarkably well. Problem is I can't seem to get it done myself.

I was wrestling with the GIMP to boost the detail in her hair. I couldn't get it to happen. I went to the GIMP-based newsgroup and asked there. A nice guy did an awful lot of work that he said yielded a smiliar result, but I couldn't duplicate it on my end. I even rescanned it at higher brightness to try and get to it that way. It didn't help.

Throwing up my hands, I loaded a *cough* demo version of PSCS. I am now trying to get up on the learning curve enough to reproduce Flora's results. I'm here to tell you it's a humbling experience. We're leaving on vacation in a week and I hope to have it done by then, but yoikes! it's not going well.

I am currently scouring this site for a tutorial on removing all those darn specs. I think I can do plenty with the healing brush and other techniques I already know about (layer masks, levels, curves, etc.) to get it finished once I deal with the plethora of small problems.

Now, where can I find such a tutorial?

Thanks.

[Gary Richardson]

Hi Mark, to get rid of the small specks, try the following.

Duplicate the image. Apply Dust and Scratches filter, Adjust radius till marks disappear. Now adjust threshhold until texture re-appears, but blemishes are not visible. Apply hide all layer mask.

Now, using a soft white brush radius just larger than marks, paint on mask. This will reveal the blurring, and therefore hide the marks.

Hope this helps.

[Mark Adams]

Thanks for that assist Gary. I found the filter and have tried to apply it as directed. Which brings me to this point. I have done a great deal of learning in Photoshop. I have a product which doesn't look too bad considering where I started. I would now like some opinions about what is left to do (contrast mask?).

This is kind of a labor of love and I don't mind working hard(er) at it. It's important to the family that this be done as best it can be done, but I've worked at it so long I can't see the picture for the pixels.

Attached is a jpeg and here is a link to a 2.3MB .tif file. Please help me out just a little more on this one folks.

Thanks.

CJR Portrait-intermediate.tif [2.3MB]

[Flora]

Hi everybody,

Sorry to get back only now .... I'm having some problems with my email and I don't get notifications regularly ...

Vikki,

Thank you so much for your comment and advice! I corrected my previous restoration adding more texture to her skin as you suggested, lifting the strong shadow just above her left temple and increasing the shadow on her left cheek .... please, let me know what you think ....

soleah,

thank you very much for your kind words!!

EbooksList,

Welcome to RP!

....Thank you so much for your kindness!!!

Mark,

thank you so much for your feedback!
... I hadn't realized you weren't working with PS ...
I think you did a very nice job on this picture .... I've downloaded your intermediate version and will look at it ..

Since you have downloaded PSCS Demo, here are a list of Tutorials to help you out ...

Selection (Channel Masking)
... to select her hair and work only on that ...

here .. scroll down the page to "Method 3: CHANNEL MASK"
here

Layer Masks (beginners)

here

Removing specs

here

In these tutorials are the first steps I took for selectively correcting the problem areas of your picture ...

Hope this helps ...

[Mark Adams]

Okay, I have continued to wrestle with this one. I'm learning more about Photoshop, mostly that there is a whole lot to know. This morning I took my latest jpeg draft to Wal-Mart and printed an 8 X 10 proof of the thing to check what I was getting. It looked pretty good, but the color was heavily saturated. I worked on it some more, added a couple of layers and tweaked some curves and the attached image is what I've come to.

I think it is representative of the 4 X 6 photo I started with and may actually make a passable 8 X 10 (her mother wants an 8 X 10). I still have some issues with the color around her left cheek and ear, but I can't figure out how to use curves or levels or B&C or H&S or the black arts to tone down the purple/red and still have a natural looking shadow with detail there.

I'd appreciate any further input. Flora did a remarkable job of pulling a corrected image together. She did in 20 minutes what has taken me two days with a passable knowledge of retouching and very little of PS. I swear, I can see what needs to be done, but the tool is so hard to get around in. It's like being forced to work with my left hand.

At any rate, the learning continues....

[Flora]

Hi Mark,

WOW ... you are a very fast learner!!! Great job!!!

Please, bear with me .... I know it must be very difficult working with a software you've never used before, such a complex one like PS and having a kind of deadline!!!
But you are doing so well and your result is truly remarkable...

Now, "to tone down the purple/red and still have a natural looking shadow with detail there."
Working on the image attached to your last post:

Selective Colors Adjustment Layer... (the following are the values I used, but 'play' with them as our monitors may show colours differently .... )

REDS
Cyan: -46%
Magenta: -19%
Yellow: 30%
Black: -42%

YELLOWS
Cyan: 19%
Magenta: 4%
Yellow: -23%
Black: -32%

MAGENTAS
Cyan: 3%
Magenta: -100%
Yellow: 77%
Black: -73%

NEUTRALS
Black: 7%

As you can see from my Layers (Attachment 2) I inverted the Selective Colors Layer Maks so it became Black (to hide all the changes) and painted white to show the corrections only where I wanted them ... (as in the 'Understanding Layer Masks' Tutorial).

The purple/red was minimized, but the cheek-temple-neck were very 'blotchy' and lacking colour in some points so I created blank Layers setting their Mode to Darken, Lighten, Color and sampling from surrounding areas with a very soft edge brush (Opacity: 10-30% for Darken&Lighten; 40-60% for Color) I corrected tjose spots ....

To selectively enhance shadows/higlights I created a blank Layer Mode = Overlay and with a soft Black/White brush (Opacity 5-10%), I carefully painted on parts I wanted to emphasize.

A second Selective Color Layer:

REDS
Cyan: -37%
Magenta: -20%
Yellow: 11%
Black: 25%

Finally addition of a little Noise to selectively add texture ...

Hope this helps...

[Mark Adams]

Okay, that was very helpful. I've never seen the Selective Color trick. With all the controls in that segment I'm eager to find a tutorial that actually shows me how to use it. Be that as it may....

I've done some more work as you can see below. I think it's looking pretty good except for the ear. I have overworked the thing trying to get the earring to come up and I've made a bit of a mess, but its a small enough area that I think I can fake it.

Once again I've stared at it so long I don't know how it looks. Also, looking at the picture this is taken from, I'm not sure shooting for an exact match is a good idea. This photo is about 15 years old and surely suffers from exposure to sunlight and the elements. The print I made at Wally World this afternoon is oversaturated -- but have I gone too far in the other direction with the current version.

It's late. I'm tired. I also wonder when you sleep. Aren't you in Italy? That puts you something like 8 hours ahead of us.

Anyway, thanks for the continuing hand-holding. I couldn't have done it without you. And I'm not finished yet. If you could be so kind as to let me know what you think of this version, we'd all appreciate it.

[Flora]

Hi Mark,

I'm really so glad .... It's nearly perfect!!!

Just a couple of small things ...

the left side of her neck is a bit oversaturated and the shadows there a bit too dark in comparison with the rest of her face ... (can be solved with Selective Colors by decreasing black in Reds, Magenta and Yellows ... and tweaking the other colours in these colour 'branches')

The heavy V shadow from the corner of her left eye to her eyebrow can be reduced with a Lighten Layer sampling from surrounding areas as described in my previous post ....

Yes, I'm in Italy ... I just couldn't sleep last night ... nearly 8:30 AM over here ..

[Mark Adams]

I feel like I'm really close. In fact, I may be there. Can anybody see anything I need to fix before I proclaim it printable?

Thanks.

[Vikki]

The contrast looks very strong, and the image as a whole, looks dark.
Just a suggestion, maybe adjust the contrast, and soften up the highlights?

[Mark Adams]

Wow, seriously? I had it a couple of shades lighter and then darkened it down a bit before posting it. The lighter version looks a bit more faithful to the original photo, but see my concerns above about exposure of the print to sunlight, etc.

But of course, you might just be right. I can't get to it today, but tomorrow I'll brighten it up a bit and get another test print. That should nail it if there are no other "icks" to correct.

Thanks so much for the input Vikki. I've done this kind of work before, but never in PS. Also, I'm working on a fairly newLCD display and don't really know how it is rendering the image. It's a real learning experience. :-)