face reconstruction

[angelomcm]

Hello again,

In my quest to become a good restorer (and work through many family pics)
I still found myself very weak at reconstructing faces. Having gone
through some tutorials and procuring myself some books, it still is pretty hard.
Especially on small source pictures.

The lil fella on next link, I just cant get right. After 2 hours of trying different
methods, he still looks like a blob...

http://img64.imageshack.us/img64/2316/faceangelomcm.jpg
The right side is my attempt until now. The cloud fiasco on the
topright has been fixed already.


Can someone experienced perhaps nudge me (again) in the right direction?
Getting textures right is just not my thing.... for now..
I would really appreciate the effort..

[csuebele]

The missing part of the face is in the sun and you've made the entire area as if it is in the shadows. You need to add sunlit areas, but that also means that you have to know how the face is shaped to contour those areas.

[spotter]

I would be inclined to use the colour from the arm on the left to fill in some of that sun brightened area as I think you have made it a bit too dark.
The ear on that side of his head has got filled in too which makes it look rather blurred.

[Flora]

You could also select, copy, paste, flip and adapt/blend the good part of the little boy's face over the blown out part of it ....

Because of its poor conditions, you will never get a nice sharp and detailed restoration out of this image ... but, at least, you can recognize the face portrayed in it ...

[angelomcm]

Thanks for all your feedback. I have taken the sun into account, and
discovered the dodge tool. Left if the result after my first experiment.
Right was the original attempt I had posted.

http://img88.imageshack.us/img88/2316/faceangelomcm.jpg

The "midtones" option seemed to have the best result.
I do see some progress (i hope) thanks to you all, for which I thank you.

Flora: Thanks for your suggestion. I have tried the "flipping" techniques
and sometimes it works. In this case, I failed miserably.
Perhaps its because I only been using this photoshop program for
2 weeks now.
I cant even grasp how you smoothed that hair so fine, excellent job.

[Flora]

Hi again,

I am really impressed about your work after using Photoshop for only two weeks!

I think you did a very good job on this difficult restoration where it can be confusing trying to find the right way to do it .... In my opinion, there are no right or wrong ways in Photoshop ... as long as you get the job done, it doesn't really matter how you got there ....

In your picture, I used the 'Flipping' technique for face and hair which then can be worked on but still looks like hair ...

After removing the long scratch running through it, I loosely selected around the area of the face I wanted to flip and lightly feathered my selection (Attachment 1) ... Copied my selection to a new Layer > Ctrl+J

Working on the new Layer I reselected my copied selection > Ctrl + Click

Used the Transform Tool to Flip my selection horizontally, the Move Tool to place it on the blown out part of the little boy's face and the Move and Warp Tools to fit it in as best as I could.

To better blend in the new part, I adjusted (Decreased) the Opacity of the new Layer and used a Levels Adjustment Layer to correct Brightness and Contrast. (Attachment 2)

Did the same thing with the hair (Attachment 3 and 4)

After this you can go on with your restoration ... For smoothing the hair, I created a new blank Layer on top and used the Smudge Tool to draw hair strands .... Tweak with blur, noise and Layer Opacity to make it look more realistic.

[angelomcm]

very clear, thank you !

[rcandeias]

I can try for you but you need to send me email address, and ask for picture of by retouched...also bear in mind I can only return this to you by end of Jun as I am going abroad today. cheers!!!

[aartist]

Flora has a new found admirer. Great job!

[Cupcake]

Her is another one.
Used CS5 & Painter.

[Flora]

angelomcm,

thank you ... and glad if it was of any help!

rcandeias,

welcome to RetouchPRO!!!!
Please, keep in mind that this is a teaching/learning Forum .. but we do have a Classifieds Forum if you are looking for restoration/retouching jobs.

aartist,

thank you so much!!!!

Cupcake,

Nice job .. a bit too painting-like in my opinion, but accurate and full of details

[kevinashworth]

Here's my effort...

http://img135.imageshack.us/img135/869/facefq.jpg

I know this is an old post but i'm up for a challenge. If it's any good to you i'll tell you how i did it.