light damage

[curvemeister]

Not that you need me to say it, but great job, Syd.

My intent was to demonstrate that curves may be used to restore color in situations where, at first glance, there appears to be no color at all. At the very least, "rescued" colors can have an impact on the choice of colors for the final retouch and tint work.

Here is another image that at first glance seems to have little or no color. The curved version has considerable color and contrast. Though it is still far from a formal retouched portrait, I think most people would prefer the curved version as a starting point.

[Kraellin]

cleaned this up a bit more.

craig

[Syd]

Point taken Curvemeister. You are quite right. In the example you posted your curves filter works wonders. In fact I have already downloaded the demo version to play around with. Thanks very much. I wasonly referring to the original image posted by Cheesie which, to all intents and purposes ( apart from a splotch of yellow on the lip and shirt) had been reduced to black and white by virtue of sun damage. Anyway I look forward to trying out your filter.

Sincerely Syd

[bart_hickman]

Originally Posted by Kraellin

cleaned this up a bit more.

craig

Looks very good except his eyes still look painted. Have you tried the manual red-eye tool in Paintshop Pro? It has the ability to fix the iris and add a new glint--looks very realistic.

Bart

[Flora]

Hi everybody,

cheesie3, curvemeister, Syd

Welcome to RP from me too!!

curvemeister,

great Tool! ... I've downloaded and tried it .... like for every new 'thing' I need a little time to get familiar and comfortable with it, but for the little I've seen, it surely looks very, very useful!! I'll let you know after I've 'played' with it a bit more...

Ed,

the one limitation of the Demo version of the Curvemeister plugin I've experienced so far, is the fact that you cannot save any alterations you might have done to the default 'curve files' (skin tones) ....

****

I've had a go at this picture (colours only!) ... was curious to see how far I could go in getting back the probable original??? colours .. I got to similar conclusions as Curvemeister, based on my perception of the results I got ... as Bart pointed out rightly ...

Originally Posted by bart_hickman

I noticed your shirt was orangy-red. I also noticed that his lips in the original are the same color as the shirt in the original so I can see why you would think the shirt must be red (same as lips)

* Looking for a probable 'grey' spot in such pictures is the first step I usually take ... The background, here, looked very tempting, but to be on a 'safer' side, I opted for a shadow area of the subject's (boy? ... girl?) eye white. (Attachment 1)

* After this, I created a Hue/Saturation Adjustment Layer and 'pumped up' the Saturation to better see what I had there ... (Attachment 2)

* Seeing that shirt and lips had the same colour (yellow), I 'went' to the Yellows box and tweaked the sliders so to give the lips a more 'natural colour. (Attachment 3)

* A final Level Adjustment Layer where I only tweaked the channels individually got me an acceptable result. (Attachment 4)

I couldn't agree more with Curvemeister about having an acceptable starting point for any restoration ...

Originally Posted by curvemeister

Though it is still far from a formal retouched portrait, I think most people would prefer the curved version as a starting point.

[Kraellin]

Originally Posted by bart_hickman

Looks very good except his eyes still look painted. Have you tried the manual red-eye tool in Paintshop Pro? It has the ability to fix the iris and add a new glint--looks very realistic.

Bart

interesting. i'd never even looked at the red-eye removal tool before. i guess i had looked at so many bad red-eye removal programs before that i had just relagated them all to the trash heap. but that one is quite good. lots of detail to work with there.

ok, so i cleaned things up a bit more. did the eyes over, added more detail to the hair where it was smudged, cleaned up the t-shirt a bit (though it shld probably be a different color overall) and cleaned up the outer hair fringe a bit where i had over-painted.

thanks bart. your knowledge of psp continues to help me out.

craig

[bart_hickman]

Just one little warning about red-removal in PSPX. There are two red-eye tools and they have very similar-looking icons in the menu.

There's the legacy tool which I mentioned to you that's the fancy one that can change iris colors and even fix animal eye. Then there's the new automatic red eye tool (new for PSPX) which is more like the typical one-click red-eye tool.

Bart

[Kraellin]

bart,

yup. got it. thanks

craig