Image Help - - Need help restoring Painting

Hardeep Singh · #1 07-04-2005, 03:06 AM

Hi

I am a new member and need some help. I have done some restoration work, but is limited to simple manual filling of cracks etc using stamp tool and other simple tools. I need help with the following photo (posted in high resolution):
http://www.seeingwithc.org/guest/hpim0035.jpg

I tried to do something to the cracked sky in upper right corner using stamp tool and the result was bearable but not good enough since I want a huge sized printout. Also, used NeatImage and put it in a different layer and kept fidlling with the opacity etc and got some ok results. (I prefer not having to fix the sky with stamp tool because that way it looses the original)

Is it possible to do better? Please let me know your steps (I have photoshop 7) and if possible, mail your experiment pics to me at hardeep_singh_1@hotmail.com.

Regards
Hardeep

Kraellin · #2 07-04-2005, 11:30 AM

oh my, this one is tricky. i've been looking at it and have come to the conclusion that this would make an excellent contest picture to work on. it's a tough one. you've got this great picture that looks like it's aged and cracked the paint like an old river bed without water. but worse, it's discolored in many spots. all that brown mottling is really a pain. the trick is to keep the look but remove the damage. but, the damage is two-fold, the drying and cracking of the paint and the discoloration. this makes it tough and extremely difficult to do with something like neatimage.

and what's worse is that as the damage moves into the trees with all the color you get the additional problem of the brown mottling blending into the tree colors. and going further down the picture the cracking lessens giving a gradient effect to the damage which makes one pass fixes more difficult. and, the original image seems to be such that you've got the canvas texture purposely showing through the paint. so, as you remove the damage, you're also going to be removing that original texture. this is NOT an easy job.

ok, you alredy know all this, but i just wanted to let you know that i'm looking at it and to find out just what level do you want to take this. i'm posting one attempt i made on the sky. i just took a small selection of it and made a new image of it. i then ran this through polaroid's dust and scratch remover using different masking modes and adjustments. some of the masks i had to hand make and others i let the program automate the masks. i ran several passes on this, using the last attempt as the new attempt to get a successively 'cleaner' image each time. once done, i pasted this back into the original picture. i'm posting a smaller image of that test area. i'm not real happy with it, but there were passes i made that seemed to help.

the trouble with doing this this way is that i lose the original texture too much. i can clean the sky area, but i lose the original texture. using clone or stamp or the heal brush may also result in the loss of the original texture... not sure. i've only done this one attempt so far.

definitely a tricky one. perhaps someone else has a better technique.

and thank you for the high resolution image. i dont think a much lower res image would have shown the problems correctly.

Craig

Cameraken · #3 07-04-2005, 12:37 PM

Kraellin is right this is difficult.

I think the only way to tackle this is to

1 remove the texture
2 repair the painting
3 replace the texture

I’ve run equalize to restore colour
FFT RGB to remove texture
Selective colour to replace brown with blue in the sky

Still a lot of work to do but I think this is the only way

Nice picture by the way.

Ken

Flora · #4 07-04-2005, 07:40 PM

Hi Hardeep,

Welcome to RP!

Since it's the image of a painting and not a faded photo, I didn't do anything to 'improve' contrast or overall colour .... I simply tried to minimize the cracks, showing what I think is the underlying canvas, without losing the original texture ....

I only used a Hue&Saturation Adjustment Layer for it .... Attachment 1 a cropped detail of the worst part of the sky .... Attachment 2 the B&A of the whole picture.

Hardeep Singh · #5 07-05-2005, 02:46 AM

Hi All

Thanks for your comments. Kraellin, really appreciate your post. Well, I hadnt thought of the decolorisation YET. I wanted to get rid of (or, atleast reduce) the cracks. Now I know why my clone tool wasnt looking good - it was making the picture lose the texture. (I hadnt realised this 'texture' thing - now that you tell me, I think it should have been obvious).

Let me look through all the photos, try it (if I can) on my pic and then get back to you. In the meanwhile, if anyone has ideas, please continue to post.

Thanks

Kraellin · #6 07-05-2005, 01:48 PM

Hardeep,
you're welcome. but i think flora has the right of this one. in fact, after looking at her post i had to go back to my hue/saturation/brightness tool and figure out what i was missing there. and, sure enough, i was missing about four fifths of what this tool could do! lol. hard to teach when you havent learned yet.

so, once again, thank you flora! you do realize that you're my mentor now

seriously, that's going to save me a lot of work in the future. i've been testing this out on images i was having trouble with in the past and the applications are numerous. so, thank you

Craig

Hardeep Singh · #7 07-06-2005, 02:30 AM

So finally, you think I should only take Flora's suggestion or do a mix and match? And I dont understand what exactly Flora did. Kraellin or Flora, could you post a step by step on the final steps that I need to do? (A newbie here, not use the hue and separation thing - and I have only Photoshop 7)

Thanks

Kraellin · #8 07-06-2005, 09:18 AM

the hue/saturation/lightness thing is a tool. in paint shop pro you can find it under 'colors/adjust'. an 'adjustment layer' is another way to use this same tool. it adds a layer to an image while also adjusting the hue/saturation/lightness. study the photoshop docs to see how and what each is and does and where to find it in your interface.

but yes, i think flora has the best way to do this with the least amount of alteration of the original scan's color and brightness and texture. basically, what it looks like is that she's simply changed the coloration of the cracked area alone by altering that color range to something more appropriate. this ends up blending all that reddish brown in the cracks to the color of the painting. it's a very quick and easy way to do this. and the hue/saturation/lightness tool can do this all in one pass. and from her first images posted here, she first cropped out just the worst portion of the sky to do this on and not the whole painting.

Craig

Flora · #9 07-06-2005, 11:04 AM

Hi Hardeep,

As I explained in my previous post, I only used one single Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer ... I prefer to use Adjustment Layers instead of working on the picture itself so, if I don't like what I did, I can always retrace my steps and correct it .... The following are the steps I took:

After opening the picture in Photoshop, I made a loose selection around the damaged part of the sky with the Lasso Tool and feathered the selection (2-4 Pixels) (Attachment 1)
With the selection active, (marching ants around it) I clicked on the Layer's Tab 4th one on the top bar of the Photoshop window and, from the cascading Menu I chose> New Adjustment Layer> Hue/Saturation ....
Just click 'OK' on the small window asking you if you are happy with the 'default' settings.
The real Hue/Saturation Dialog Box will now appear .... and if you check your Layers' Palette, you will see that it has placed itself on top of your background, and that it has a black and white Layer mask attached to it ... (Attachment 2)
- ...A quicker way to do this is from the point "With the selection active, (marching ants around it)" just click on the "Create new fill or adjustment Layer" icon at the bottom of your Layers Palette ... The Hue/Saturation Dialog Box will open immediately ... (if you keep your cursor on the small icons on the various Palettes for a couple of seconds, an explanation about what they are will appear) ....
The Hue/Saturation Dialog Box will open on the 'Master' sliders where I only tweake the Lightness.. (Attachment 3)
Clickink on the small arrow on the right of the Master tab you'll get a cascading Menu ... from which I selected the 'Reds' first (values in (Attachment 4) )
... and the 'Yellows' ( values in (Attachment 5) )

It surely sounds very complex, but, believe me, it's very easy and it was done in no more than 2 minutes ....

.... (It takes me much longer to write it down ...

..)

Craig,

.... thank you so much .... (...but ... mentor? .... I really don't feel like one ...

) .... I'm so glad if my tip will help 'saving you a lot of work in the future' ....

Kraellin · #10 07-06-2005, 01:26 PM

flora,

psp's tool for this is layed out differently, but it's the same thing essentially. the part i wasnt aware of before your first post was the range selection part and that i could edit just one range of colors into another. your post forced me to look at psp's tool again and learn a bit more. that makes me the student/intern and you the professor/mentor. and since this happens rather consistently, i think the moniker (boy, that's a word i havent used in years) fits

Craig

Cameraken · #11 07-06-2005, 03:44 PM

Flora makes the Hue/Saturation tool look very easy. The big problem I have with this tool is knowing which slider to adjust and in which direction.
Using the eyedropper does not seem to help as even when you know the HSL values you want this does not seem to help in finding the correct values on the sliders.
Flora seems to be able to do this ‘by eye’
Does anyone know a way to do this ‘By the Numbers’?

Ken

skmcb · #12 07-06-2005, 05:21 PM

I decided to give your painting restoration a try as my 2nd post to the site.
I wasn't on my main computer so I only had Photoshop Elements 2.0 available at the time.
I decided to try to bring out the colors in the painting, while trying to maintain the texture and repairing any age damage.
I started with a levels adjustment to bring up the colors a bit.
In order to restore the color I selected each color separately and created a new layer for them and adjusted each one. I set the tolerance on the magic wand selection tool at 50 and when all was said and done I had about 15 layers of various colors. I then simply went and used the replace color on each until I found tones that I liked.
After I had the colors adjusted to where I wanted them I used the clone tool to fix any age damage that still needed to be repaired.
To be sure the texture was still intact I ran a texture filter on the whole picture. Still a few spots that need a little TLC but I have to run.. maybe will bring it over to Photoshop 7 and see if I can't work out the last few details.

Suzanne

berwin · #13 07-06-2005, 05:40 PM

Greetings every one and venerable ones,

I am your newest newbie, just joined yesterday and hope you bear with me if my posting somehow gets corrupted with the images.
Pertaining to this beautiful painting of Hardeep Singh's, I am making three assumptions off the bat:

1) The copied image is flat coming out of the digicam (washed out).
2) The use of flash lighting has resulted in uneven lighting (center more).
3) The color is off.

I may be wrong or right about it, but here is the image and the layers pallette explaining my workflow.

Greetings,

berwin

Hardeep Singh · #14 07-07-2005, 01:59 AM

Hi All,

Thanks for taking the time to answer my queries.

Kraellin, based on your explanation, I fiddled with the Hue and Separation tool until I realised that changing the HSL sliders for 'red' affects only the cracks. So I changed those until the sky looked better. It still didnt look as good as Flora's though. Since the photograph didnt have good contrast etc for a print, I 'auto contrast'ed it but that only made the cracks show a little again. So, I undid that and used the manual contrast to get to a decent tradeoff.

Flora, thanks for your detailed explanation. I know its always harder to explain than do. Will try the detailed procedure today.

skmb, your stuff looks good. Although there is a little sidden meeting between the trees and the sky, its still very nice. Will try this too, thanks.

berwin, thanks.

Hardeep Singh · #15 07-07-2005, 05:16 AM

Flora, was able to replicate the steps - amazing how so simple steps could do something so wonderful. How did you arrive at the numbers? Maybe its just experience

skmcb, found it hard to replicate your steps. overall understood the method but still, I am not that skilled yet. would need to replicate the steps on the high resolution image to be useful unless you can email the result to me.