Can anyone help??

[Andrew's Mom]

I have a photo i have been working on with no good result, and i would really appriciate any help i can get. Here is my story
I gave birth 2 years ago to my son. He was stillborn and looked terrible and i have been trying to retouch his picture so that I can have a normal looking picture to hang on my wall.
He looked really bad and i can not hang a picture of him up the way he looked. So any help would be highly appriciated.

Thanks,
Andrew's Mom

[Andrew's Mom]

Sorry
I think i posted this in the wrong place.
Sorry again
I am new at this.

[GOLDCOIN]

A warm Welcome.....Andrew's Mom,

Your posted message was just fine, if around here one errs.....
Another will gently lead them from darkness....


Maybe a little help for you to upload your photo....

Know where it is located on your computer, which folder.
Scroll down on this message box....to where you see the word "Browse"

Click on it... find your folder, using top row box.
When you find it, highlight it and click open

Do the same on line with your pix, highlight .....click open

All that is left to do now....click submit reply.

Whenever you feel comfortable..... I know you will find many that are willing to assist you .....

[DJ Dubovsky]

Hi Andrew's Mom,
Welcome to Retouch Pro. So sorry about your loss. There are alot of talented members here to help steer you in the right direction but they usually depend on some kind of visual reference. Like Goldcoin said, if you could upload a pic to show us we can probably help you out. The picture will have to be no bigger than 100 kb in size so you may have to resize it. Then just follow Goldcoins directions. If you get a message saying the file size was too big you may have to resize it and try again. Sometimes using a Save For Web feature is real helpful.
DJ

[Doug Nelson]

You are welcome to attach your photo here, however considering the sensitive subject matter you might want to work via email with interested parties instead. We get thousands of visitors per month who never register or post, and not everyone is as nice as our registered members. It could be heartbreaking to have your photo appear elsewhere in less sympathetic circumstances.

[Andrew's Mom]

Thanks for everything and i will email the picture but not post.
The picture is too bad to post.
And thanks Doug for thinking of me. You are so very right.
anyone wanting an email just let me know, and i will email it to you.
But i warn you now it is a really bad looking picture and some might not want to see it after all.

thanks everyone,
Sincerely,
Andrew's Mom

[dcarr]

I did Chuck and received a lovely thank you from the mom. Yes it was disturbing, but if it makes a difference it was worth it. I think anyone who wants to should try, the mom will have a lot of choices then.
Debbie

[CJ Swartz]

Chuck, thanks for sending me the images. I finished one that I sent to Andrew's Mom. As Debbie said, giving her a number of choices would be wonderful.

[DJ Dubovsky]

The picture is shocking to say the least but he's a beautiful baby and it was truly rewarding trying to retouch his picture.
From the looks of it, Andrew's Mom will get a lot of good help here. As always the Retouch Pro members flock to help. It what I love most about being here.
DJ

[roger_ele]

Hi, I just returned a retouched photo to her also, this was an interesting challenge and I am very happy with the results. After the work it seems a shame not to share the afters ... a challenge with no visuals... the part I had trouble with and I left similar to the original because what ever I tried seemed to look fake was the lips - any who are happy with the job you did on the lips please pass to me your technique, Thanks.
Roger

[CJ Swartz]

Roger, I used "Transform" on his lips -- didn't get the exact change I wanted, but it was an improvement. I tried "Liquify" also, but was unsuccessful and just reverted back to what I had already done.

[Andrew's Mom]

I have recieved alot more help then I tought I ever would.
I didn't think there would have that many people who would be willing to even look at his picture. After all it is pretty bad.
I would like to thank everyone for the pictures they are all so wonderful.
More wonderful then I ever dreamed possible.
As I said I tried to retouch but I am not very good and don't know that much about it. So I was never happy with my results. All of you made my baby look so beautiful.
It is more than I ever thought could happen from the photo I have of him.

Thanks to all.

Sincerely,
Andrew's Mom
Rosemarie (Rosie)

[DJ Dubovsky]

Roger,
I had the same trouble at first with his lips because they were so dark. But I think I got them to look very close to natural. Here's what I finally ended up doing.
I selected the lips and surrounding area and copied to a seperate layer. I then used Hue/ Saturation to desaturate the color from them. I then used curves on the black and white layer to lighten his lips to the proper levels. I used Hue/ Saturation again and checked the box named color. I adjusted the hue slider to give a nice pink color. I applied a layer mask and with a soft brush I masked out the area around the lips leaving just the lips exposed. I then used a low opacity burn tool to darken just the shadow line where the lips come together.

Andrew's Mom,
You're welcome. As you can see we were all delighted to help out.
DJ

[DJ Dubovsky]

You're welcome Chuck. I can't say it's the best way to handle the situation but it seemed to work best for any technique I could come up with. Glad you could get some use out of it.
DJ

[arrowphoto]

Hey, Andrew's Mom, email me a few of the images that you like along with your address. I got in on this one a liitle late, but I own a lab that does really nice digital output. It would be a pleasure to print your pictures.

[Andrew's Mom]

Arrowphoto, you will have to email me, your email address. As I can not send images though here. I very much appriciate your offer. Thanks!!

Andrew's Mom