Nebraska State Fair

HroadhogD1 · #1 02-02-2006, 05:32 PM

This is a picture that my girl friend gave to me to restore. I have to say first off that I am a newbie. Ok, This was taken at the fair when my girl friends dad had a booth set up. He has passed away 20-30 years ago, and my girl friend likes this picture of him. I am having trouble with the two bottom corners. I cant seem to be able to straighten out (or figure out) what is there. On the left side it looks like a couple of plants, but the right side ???? Can anyone help me. If you can, please let me know how you did it ( remember Im new), so I can do it. I am having alot of fun with photshop, but I am in need of someone who has done something like this before. Thanks

HroadhogD1 · #2 02-02-2006, 05:33 PM

should I crop it?

djbates89 · #3 02-02-2006, 06:47 PM

You can crop up to the edge of the picture frames and the beam on the right side and not loose any detail of the shot. Restoration would be a lot easier on everything else. I'm just a trying to learn myself.

dkcoats · #4 02-02-2006, 07:06 PM

It's all too easy to get obsessed with trying to restore or recreate every last bloody detail in a photograph. The important question, in my view, is: what's the picture really about?

In this case: a plant in the lower left-hand corner? Unlikely. Whatever unknowable stuff there might have been on the right? No way. Your girlfriend's dad? Of course.

The fact is, most amateur snapshots are composed way too loosely in the first place and can usually be helped by some - often a lot - of judicious cropping.

So crop away, I say, and save yourself a little work.

dc

mistermonday · #5 02-02-2006, 07:13 PM

Welcome to RetouchPRO and to Restoration. A handsome gentleman he was. I would definitely crop as there is a lot of background which adds no value and detracts from the main focus. Also used the channel mixer set to monotone to convert the image to graayscale. The image you uploaded is very heavily JPEG pixelated but you will do much better with a fresh hi resolution scan. For this quick retouch, I cloned some existing areas which were similar and just patched over the torn corners. For the right side I just clone stamped in what was probably an end table. I erased the chair legs as they added no value but you could patch them back in. The clone tool can clean up the misc scratches.
I added some contrast aimed at boosting the subject and not worrying about blowing out the area under the lights. You could continue to brush the other parts of the image to smooth out some rough areas. With only a few minutes to spare I decided to apply a Reduce Noise filter to the whole image to soften it and used the history brush to restore some of the detail back into the man.

If any of the above jargon is confusing, please do not hesitate to ask for clarification. I wasn't sure how much Photoshop to assume you have used.
BTW, one thing you may want to consider is to extract your friend's father entirely from the background and paste him into another totally diffent background. His portion of the image is in pretty good shape and he should be fairly easy to remove. Good luck with the rest of it.

Regards, Murray

HroadhogD1 · #6 02-02-2006, 07:19 PM

Yes, you are exactly right, (yea, you know its coming) .......BUT, since I am in the learning process anyway, I would like to learn how to reconstruct the lower corners of the picture, I can always learn something I'm sure, and then I can still crop if needed. I hope you see what I mean by that.

HroadhogD1 · #7 02-02-2006, 07:25 PM

MISTERMONDAY-Looks good. Yes I would like you to explain in much more detail. I havent been into photoshop very long. Thanks

mistermonday · #8 02-03-2006, 07:12 PM

Here is some additional description. To patch over the left side select the rectangular marquee tool (set the feather to 3 pixels) and drag it to select a good piece of the edge of the wall. Now copy and paste this segment to a new layer. Once on its own layer, select the move tool and drag this piece of wall downward to cover a piece of the damaged wall. You can duplicate the layer to get another duplicate piece and drag it below the first piece. When you have fiished that edge of the wall you can flatten the layers with the good pieces or you can link the layers together and take select the new entire edge and use it to patch the side of the wall. You can keep finding or generating suitable pieces until you cover the damaged area.
Now moving to the right side. I apologize but b was using a laptop with a really bad LCD display yesterday so I thought the lower corner had a table. On examination with my normal monitor I see that it is just a floor. I selected the clone stamp with the bruch partially soft, just began cleaning up this area by selecting an undamaged area of the floor.
I think if you learn how the some of these Photoshop tools work, some of this will come pretty easily to you.
Regards, Murray

HroadhogD1 · #9 02-03-2006, 09:30 PM

Yes, I see what you mean. I did a little experimenting last night, and I was able to get the lower corners kind of the way you described. I did notice something. On the chair(I think that is what it is) just down from the paper he is holding, there is something trianglar, with something round on it. It is hard to see untill you get some of the mess cleaned up. I cant figure out what it is, but I would really like to. Does anybody have any ideas how to do that? It may be something important, (you never can tell) The object is on his right side below the paper he is holding. If there is a way, please let me know. Thanks for all of your help!!