light damage

[cheesie3]

is it possible to bring back some of the original colour, particularly the skin tones, in a sun bleeched image like the one attached? and if so, how?

thanks

cheesie

[Ed_L]

Welcome to RP. This is a very quick example. I sampled a good skintone to make my foreground color the same. Back to the pic in question: made a blank layer, and chose "color" as the blending mode. Then I painted the face with that foreground color. By making a layer mask, you can then paint with black to "erase" any part you might have gone too far on. If you happen to erase too much, just paint on the same place with white. That will restore the skintone color. The same technique can be used for all other parts. It's probably better to make another blank layer for each color. If the color seems too strong, just reduce the opacity until happy. Good luck. If this is too far advanced, ask questions.

Ed

[Kraellin]

cheesie,

welcome to RP.

in some instances you can bring back color and restore. however, your image is too far gone to bring it back in a normal manner. the only option is to re-paint it. Ed_L has shown you one way. there are others. we've got some very good color restorers on here. perhaps another will drop in and show you some tricks.

in the meantime, i'd suggest a search on the forums here or try the tutorial section. there shld be some pretty good stuff there.

craig

[philbach]

It seemed that just about all of the color was gone. So I desaturated it and then painted the color back in using blending mode of color. I also used the healing brush on some of the streaks.

[Gary Richardson]

As the others have already said, it looks like a paint job is needed.

Had a quick go to give you some idea. I'm not really much of a colourer, so you must forgive my crude attempt, the true artists here do it much better.

[Cameraken]

Hi Cheesie
Welcome to RetouchPro

I adjusted levels and increased the reds to eliminate the blue cast, But there was still not enough colour info so I coloured it as well.

Lightened the eyes and sharpened.

Ken

[curvemeister]

I believe this image has enough color to work with.

This correction used a three step process involving converting to Lab, the curvemeister plugin, and selective color. I used the brush to clean up a mask, some painting in color mode to get rid of yellow spots on the face, and a bit of healing brush.

I've included several numbered intermediate images, and the final image

[Ed_L]

Welcome aboard, curvemeister. You sure know how to make an entrance, don't you? I'd like to bet that if cheesie agreed to let you use the image, you could really write a nice tutorial if you were so inclined.

I checked out your site. What are the limitations of the demo?

Ed

[curvemeister]

LOL - thanks for the kind words, Ed.

I'm delighted to discover this site and hope to participate here actively. My general take is to use curves to extract the color, since I cannot duplicate the rather incredible painting skills of many of the others here.

The demo version of curvemeister does just about everything, and in fact I teach a class using it. It has all the functionality, and watermarks the image. Windows only.

[Ed_L]

O.K. Thanks. I'm sure there will be downloads for it.

Ed

[bart_hickman]

Well this is one of those cases where Paintshop Pro has an indispensable feature the equivalent of which I can not find in Photoshop. That feature is called "manual color correction". Now I see why people rave about it so much.

In PSPX, I ran a script that splits the image into HSL (legacy) channels. Then gave the saturation channel my usual curve boost. This basically boosts saturation most in the mid-saturation areas while relatively unaffecting very high or very low saturation areas.

Then used the manual color correction tool to make his skin "caucasian normal light" and clicked his cheek. I checked the "preserve luminance" box. That pretty much concludes the "restoration" part.

I then brought that result back over to Photoshop so I could do the healing brush (I'm addicted to that thing!). I did a color balance layer (very slight)--this was to taste. I tend to like to boost cyans and yellows for skin--maybe I should have gone for a bit less cyan. I also colored his lips a bit red and his teeth a bit whiter. Finished off with one last curve to make it a bit brighter. I left the hazy mess in the background alone--that's a simple matter.

Bart

[bart_hickman]

Hey that's a nice one! I'm the non-artistic gear-headed sort myself.

Bart

[bart_hickman]

Ken, good one! Very clean-looking. The face and cheeks look very nice.

Bart

[curvemeister]

Originally Posted by bart_hickman

Well this is one of those cases where Paintshop Pro has an indispensable feature the equivalent of which I can not find in Photoshop. That feature is called "manual color correction". Now I see why people rave about it so much.
...
Bart

Hi Bart,

Wow! There is more than one way to accomplish this, and I like your final result a little better than mine.

I'll bet a nickel the shirt was originally red though - maybe Cheesie will chime in

[Kraellin]

for those using psp 10, the 'manual color correction' no longer exists as such. it was replaced by 'hue map'. the reference for this is the psp 10 help files.

also, curvemeister, your plugin by the same name isnt really 'finding' lost color. so, my original assessment stands; there's not enough of the original color to do something like a color balance or channel mixer and so on. your curvemeister plugin could be used on any black and white in 8 bit rgb (not grayscale) to add color. all it's doing is manipulating the grays by separating out each channel into a color band and adjusting from there. this isnt quite the same thing as 'restoring original color'.

i'll grant you it's a pretty slick looking program, but i stand by my original assessment. essentially, what your program seems to be doing is 'painting by curves'. so, you're still actually re-painting the image to restore it. i do like the idea of it, however. since the grays are representing colors, albeit in black and white, a program like curvemeister makes a lot of sense. you simply take the grays, divide them up into the rgb values and enhance those values based on what the grays represent. pretty slick! i may have to try that demo out. that could handle some unique problems in other images as well as what you've done here.

also, cheesie, do you happen to know what the original hair and eye colors were?

craig

[bart_hickman]

Hi Craig,

All of the old tools are still there in PSPX. Pull down the menu "view->customize". Then scroll down to the "unused commands". The manual color correction is in list of commands on the right. I drag-n-dropped it back into the Adjust menu along with a few other of my favorites from PSP9.

Many of the tools in there are obsolete, but all of the old gems are there too. I think Corel overdid things a bit in an attempt to simplify the program.

Bart

[bart_hickman]

Originally Posted by Kraellin

also, curvemeister, your plugin by the same name isnt really 'finding' lost color. so, my original assessment stands; there's not enough of the original color to do something like a color balance or channel mixer and so on.

craig

I was thinking the same thing. There is some hue information, however it's only just enough so that when you push the color vector in his face to something reasonable, the other colors in the image also look reasonable, but that's psychology at work. One can't say for sure if the colors actually are right.

The jpeg artifacts weren't helping either.

Bart

[bart_hickman]

Originally Posted by curvemeister

Hi Bart,

Wow! There is more than one way to accomplish this, and I like your final result a little better than mine.

I'll bet a nickel the shirt was originally red though - maybe Cheesie will chime in

Thanks! It's funny, but I was looking at yours and wondering if mine was too blue. I think if you stare at one for a long time, then switch to a 2nd one, your brain likes the new one simply because you're sick of looking at the first one.

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). It'll be interesting to see which color the shirt was. It's possible the sun fades some pigments more rapidly than others in which case previously different hues could become identical and thus indistinguishable.

Bart

[Cameraken]

Hi Curvemeister.
Welcome to RetouchPro. Nice job. I downloaded the demo of curvemeister last year
But I must admit I haven’t used is much.

Bart. Thanks for your comments.

I do agree with Curvemeister that the original shirt was probably red. I decided to try again without painting in colour.

1) hue/sat layer. Master Sat +65 (image turns blue)
2) Channel Mixer increase red to +148
3) Selective colour Reds – Magenta + 69
Yellow + 46
Yellows - Magenta + 62
4) Curves Layer for skin

Yes. It does still need some painting (or selective adjustments) But at least I got to this point without painting

Ken

[Kraellin]

bart,

All of the old tools are still there in PSPX. Pull down the menu "view->customize". Then scroll down to the "unused commands". The manual color correction is in list of commands on the right. I drag-n-dropped it back into the Adjust menu along with a few other of my favorites from PSP9.

very, very cool! i just added 'manual color correction' and 'black and white points' back in! that's pretty slick! what else did you add back in?

craig

[curvemeister]

Originally Posted by Kraellin

...
also, curvemeister, your plugin by the same name isnt really 'finding' lost color.

You're quite correct that once lost, color cannot be restored. This particular image has some remaining color, and each curve move was based on color from the original image.

By increasing saturation in step 1, and making an educated guess about skin color, color be restored. Because some color remains, color variation in the skin tones can be . This gives a relatively natural variation of color that is difficult to accomplish by painting alone. The blue tone to the background may or may not be accurage, but it adds visual interest, and is based on the color in the original image.

After this treatment, I did another educated guess amounting to a bit of coolor archeology. Notice that in image 1 the lips stand out as a relatively bright yellow, a clue that the magenta dye of the original has evaporated, leaving only yellow where red once existed. Using the yellow as a mask, I added magenta back again, and got red lips as well as a red shirt, resulting in image 2.

Image 3 is a minor course change, restoring the skin tone back to a nominal value.

None of the steps would be possible with a black and white image, and I think the results speak for themselves and stand up well to the other excellent images, including yours, that used hand tinting. Those of us who are less skilled at brushwork may find curves, whether with curvemeister or not, to be a good alternative.

[bart_hickman]

Originally Posted by curvemeister

After this treatment, I did another educated guess amounting to a bit of coolor archeology. Notice that in image 1 the lips stand out as a relatively bright yellow, a clue that the magenta dye of the original has evaporated, leaving only yellow where red once existed. Using the yellow as a mask, I added magenta back again, and got red lips as well as a red shirt, resulting in image 2.

What about the stuff that really was yellow in the pre-faded image? Wouldn't it be better to break out the magenta channel and amplify the whole thing (ie., steep, straight curve with 0,0 origin)? I'm away from my computer at the moment so I can't see if there is any magenta left to amplify.

I see the concentrated reddish color along the bottom edge--was that your clue? It's like the ink migrated to the edges of the picture.

Bart

[curvemeister]

Originally Posted by bart_hickman

What about the stuff that really was yellow in the pre-faded image?

My version almost certainly failed to retrieve any yellow color, other than skin tone, in the image. The background for example is blue-ish and may have been gray originally.

Originally Posted by bart_hickman

Wouldn't it be better to break out the magenta channel and amplify the whole thing (ie., steep, straight curve with 0,0 origin)? I'm away from my computer at the moment so I can't see if there is any magenta left to amplify.

For some faded images this works very well, but not this particular one. The problem is that this image has contrast and very little color. It resembles a hand tinted silver image more than it does a color print.

You may have better luck, but I found that separating to CMYK, even with very heavy GCR, results in very noisy CMY channels. Lab was much more effective at bringing out color without affecting the brightness of the basic image.

Originally Posted by bart_hickman

I see the concentrated reddish color along the bottom edge--was that your clue? It's like the ink migrated to the edges of the picture.Bart

This is where the frame protected the edge of the picture. It confirms that adding magenta to yellow is a good choice for this image.

[bart_hickman]

Originally Posted by Kraellin

bart,

very, very cool! i just added 'manual color correction' and 'black and white points' back in! that's pretty slick! what else did you add back in?

craig

It's been so long since I configured my menus, I can't remember. I pretty much rearranged the Adjust menu. I put a "Color" and "Brightness/Contrast" menus at the top and then added and removed several items and alphabetized them so I could find stuff. I attached what the two submenus look like.

Bart

[Kraellin]

curvemeister,

i guess i shld probably shut my mouth. i really dont know your program and it seems you're getting some results with it. i'll have to try it out and then argue or agree with you later

in the meantime, i gave painting a shot. i'm not the best at this. flora or vikki or some others can do these much better, but that's a good reason for doing it...practice. so, here we go...

oh, and ignore the shirt and clothing and background. i was really only working on the skin, eyes and hair.

craig

[Kraellin]

bart,

thanks

ok, so i've put a few things back onto the menus. umm, so how do i remove them now that i've found a couple i dont need or want?

craig

[bart_hickman]

Originally Posted by Kraellin

bart,

thanks

ok, so i've put a few things back onto the menus. umm, so how do i remove them now that i've found a couple i dont need or want?

craig

With the customize dialog open, just grab any control you don't want and drag it out of position until it turns into an "x" and then drop it.

It's a big scary how configurable the UI is--you can totally change the character of the program. You can even configure the context-sensitive menus.

Adobe should be using the PSP UI as a model IMO.

Bart

[Kraellin]

thanks bart. i kind of figured that might be the way, but really didnt want to mess things up.

also, isnt psp done in python and that you could actually more or less write and append extra functions and so on to psp?

craig

[bart_hickman]

Originally Posted by Kraellin

thanks bart. i kind of figured that might be the way, but really didnt want to mess things up.

also, isnt psp done in python and that you could actually more or less write and append extra functions and so on to psp?

craig

The scripting language is Python, but I can't believe the program itself is written in Python--I'm pretty sure they're using the Microsoft Visual Studio (I believe I've seen Visual C++ or Visual Studio based error messages when it crashes.)

The Python interface does not have direct access to the image data, so it's not quite as powerful as the plugin interface. However, if you were so inclined, you could write a script that instructs PSP to export the image to a file or the clipboard, then import that into your script and operate directly on the image.

The way in which Jasc implemented scripting is wonderful IMO. It has all of the convenience of actions in Photoshop while having all of the power of scripting.

Bart

[Syd]

I agree the colors are too far gone in this image to be salvaged. And the work you would have to do on it afer putting it through Curvemeister (getting rid of the splotchy colors and all the fine tuning with multiple selective color and color blend layers) would be more tedious than desaturating it and coloring it from scratch. I always try to find a similiar shot ( age, gender and lighting conditions) and keep it as a reference to make sure I am not straying too much. Here is my quick, lightly colored attempt.
Syd