Image Help - - Faded beyond the point of no return?

abquid · #1 05-29-2008, 02:31 PM

This is a photo of the (deceased) son of one of my mother's friends; my mom is asking me to see if I can do anything with it. It seems like there just isn't enough information left to restore the correct color, though if I look at the individual channels they seem to have some range. I just don't know enough to be able to extract any useful color and at the same time get rid of the yellow/red cast. If I could even just get the flesh tones looking right I think I might be able to fudge the rest...

I tried a little bit of multiplying layers, Hue/Saturation, etc. but I don't really know what I'm doing. The best I've been able to do is to make selections for the skin, hair, background and essentially color them, but the end result just looks like one of those old hand-tinted B&Ws.

Any suggestions? I appreciate your time.

crazyfly1 · #2 05-29-2008, 03:57 PM

abquid, welcome
I looked at your photo. It doesn't look like there is much color info there after removing the cast. I would suggest either a black and white or see if you can get another picture with good color info or maybe even a pictur of the mom from the same era. Sample colors from skin from the second image and paint them into the first using a second layer and color blend mode at a low opacity. Sorry I couldn't be more help, maybe someone else will have a better idea.

lilysharon · #3 05-29-2008, 09:27 PM

I gave it a try using Phototune.
Then adjusted the colors using a blend mode with another color, a yellow tone on overlay or soft light over his skin and another slightly different hue to his hair.
Then you can fix the blotchiness using the clone and some skin softening.
I used replace color to change the color of his shirt.
As always, levels was used to bring back some debth and dimension.
The eyes were colored using a color blend mode and painting blue and red respectively
on another layer over the finished photo.

DCobb · #4 05-30-2008, 01:05 AM

This is my try. I finished the final color adjustment in camera raw. There are flaws in this, but colorization is someting I am still working on. It is an improvement over the original posted image.

dc

marliz · #5 05-30-2008, 01:57 AM

First try at uploading photo and contributing. Hope it works.
Basically I spent a while using combinations of iCorrect portrait adjustment, levels and hue adjustments, and finally resorted to brushing in some color on the hair and eyes. Very quick healing brush work just before I saved for web.
Peggy

Ziaphra · #6 05-30-2008, 02:20 AM

I gave this a go too...

crazyfly1 · #7 05-30-2008, 02:55 AM

Wow, ziaphra
Id like to know how you did that.

Ziaphra · #8 05-30-2008, 02:59 AM

Quite a few selective adjustment layers...2 for colour correcting, 2 for curves, a bit of colourizing, smudging and noise.

abquid · #9 05-30-2008, 03:25 PM

Thanks to all for your work- I was amazed at what each of you was able to do with the pic. Every one of them is such an improvement over the original, and better than my attempts. I'm going to use parts and info from all of your images for sampling, overlays, etc. and I know I can now build something that will be pretty nice.

Gordon

abquid · #10 05-30-2008, 03:29 PM

One more thing: If any of you still have your files in PS form, or higher rez, I would love it if you could PM them to me.

thanks!

DCobb · #11 05-30-2008, 03:54 PM

Gordon, It would be nice if you would share and post your retouching efforts.

dc

DCobb · #12 06-01-2008, 01:22 AM

I was not happy with my original colorizatrion. Still trying to get a handle on the process and gave it another try after restudying some tutorials. I realize that there is still room for a lot of improvement.

Love the stunning work posted by Ziaphra

-softened the skin
-dodge/burn to enhance shadows and highlights
-tried color balance, H/S, and Brightness/Contrast to adjust the skin color

dc