Problem Potpourri

[geezer]

I would certainly appreciate some direction with these photos. I am fairly new to Photoshop (using CS2) and could probably find a tutorial if I knew how to articulate the problem. Alas, I don't. The one of the lady in church was taken on a new digital camera. I would like some direction as to "recovering" this image (if it is even recoverable to any degree).
The young man with the purple stamp is my brother Sisay. It's the only photo of him as a young man in Ethiopia and I would like to know if it can be saved.
The next two are my aunt (my mothers' sister) who passed away several years ago. I would like to colourize them (I have been able to clean them up fairly well) but am somewhat baffled by tutorials and books which assume that I am far more adept than I really am. Any assistance would be immensely appreciated.

[byRo]

Welcome to RetouchPRO

I'm sure somebody will be along soon with a whole list of links to help out (otherwise, I will when I get back from lunch)...
In the meantime, could you post a bigger image of the "blurred" lady in the church?

Rô

[Gary Richardson]

Hi,

Welcome to RP. Had a quick go with the picture of your brother. Unfortunately the stamp went straight through his eyes, so I was unable to do a very good job there. Otherwise it was just a case of cloning and patching. Also a little contrast adjustment with levels and a little sharpening.

It may be possible to superimpose eyes onto the picture, but with a face you know so well, it will be difficult to do without changing his look. I've probably already done that by cloning. As you know his face, it should be easier for you to get it right.

[rondon]

Hi

This is just meant as a way to start..

if you open the channel window and delete red and green the blue channel looks better (because the stain is blue).

I then duplicated the Layer then set the new layer to the multiply mode..
because it was then too dark I lowered the opacity of the layer... both of those things in the layers window.

at some point I changed the photo to greyscale then back to RGB... i'm not sure if that was neccessary though.

anyhow then I flattened the image..

I hope you get lots of advice.. and enjoy the experience

RonDon

[geezer]

Thank you all so very much for your timely assistance. I was certainly overwhelmed that such a response was forthcoming. Here is a larger copy of the Greek lady. Thanks again.

[Flora]

Hi geezer,

Welcome to RP!

I tried the 'Greek Lady', but got no acceptable results .... Unfortunately it's very, very blurred (a lot of duplications) ... and I'm afraid nothing really works when the blurring is so extreme ....

One question .... could you please, post a bigger size of your aunt's pictures as well? .... They are very small and this makes working on them difficult

Just follow the second link under my signature if you are not sure about size and resolution...

[Kraellin]

i gave the lady in church a shot. ran this about 5 times with some of the rendering times running over 8 minutes. it's pretty severely blurred....camera shake, but i improved it a bit.

Craig

[Kraellin]

i also tried this one. this is strictly clone, push and some fine brush work around the eyes. there's prolly an easier way in photoshop; i'm using paint shop pro 7.xx.

Craig

[geezer]

A note of thanks to everybody who was not only kind enough to give it a go but whose mini-tutorials are now printed in my burgeoning Photoshop notebook. Flora...here are to pictures of my aunt which you requested. The tutorial on how to have Photoshop do all of the size alteration worked quite well. To Gary, Ro, rondon and Kraellin, my deepest appreciation. I had some success with following your various hints and will send them in the next reply. At the moment, I do believe that my grandchildren are commencing with some type of revolt and so I shall return within the hour.

[nebgranny]

Hi Geezer:
Welcome to the forum. I am new to photoshop myself. Just purchased CS2. I hardly know the program myself so can not help with the pictures, but if you stick around long enough you will learn a lot and the people here are so kind and helpful, not to say patient with questions and requests for help from a granny...ME.

Which brings me to this...My grands come over often and they offer some "fine" times here too, aren't they grand!! LOL I just wanted to let you know I have this in common with you and hope you got the gang settled before the revolt broke out!! Good luck with your learning experience . Nebgranny

Sending to help you with the grands..LOL

[Flora]

Hi,

... had a go at colorizing ... I'm not sure if the colours I used are right ...

[greatguy]

Well, here is my attempt, a lot of clone, healing brush work. I didn't like the hair, in the low res photo it lacked any texture and really looked splochy when touched up. I used the short afro Nagle brush to redo the hair. I also redid the eyebrows darkened his skin, and created some shadow to the left face. I hope you don't mind the "artistic" liberty.

Bruce

[krishna]

I was trying my luck on this photo in a software called Cadet, which has the deconvolve (deblurring) option. While experimenting with various other commands, I clicked on the exponential option in 'Set background and range command'. And got this result. I don't know how it works, but definitely I could make out some features of the old lady. The command works in colour too.

[Flora]

Hi krishna,

wow ... that really could make a difference in extremely blurred pictures!!!! ....

[Flora]

Hi greatguy,

Welcome to RP!

More like a painting but a nice clean job!