Faint Facial Features

[TylerCruz]

Hi everyone - attached is a large JPG (It's from a tiny wallet photo, so it's not terribly large) that I restored (PLEASE forgive me on the edges, I blurred it, but was a bit cumbersome and made the brush size too big, and saved it and didn't realize until later that it looked bad (it's not too bad though).

Anyhow, now I'm trying to make the facial features sharper, or stand out more, such as the eyes.. but can't get a good method working... also, please suggest any suggestions on other thing to improve, and how to improve it.. feel free to try your knack at the image too! Thanks

http://www.movie-vault.com/darren.jpg (639 KB)

[GOLDCOIN]

Hi ..

Took the green channel & played with it. The eyes can be seen a little better.

[Flora]

TylerCruz,

Wow ... that's quite a difficult picture to work on .... very, very noisy, particularly in the face ....

After improving the tone and removing a bit of noise from the soldier's face, I created new empty Layers (Blending set to: Luminosity, Overlay and Soft Light) and with a very fuzzy either black or white Brush I enhanced his features (particularly his eyes) and, playing with shadows and lights I tried to get a more 3 D feeling.

If this is more or less what you were after and would like a more detailed description of the steps I took ... jus let me know.

[TylerCruz]

Hi Flora,

That's amazing; you humble me. I've seen your other work and posts here which prooves you have special skill.

Yes, PLEASE _do_ share in more detail how you achieved that!

[winwintoo]

Hi Tyler, I don't have anything useful to add in terms of cleaning up the noise, but I do have a comment about the poor guys ear....I've done this myself. Trying to mask around a head, getting in too close and cutting the head too close.

I've made a red circle in the area I'm talking about.

Take care, Margaret

[TylerCruz]

Hi,

Now that I look at the original, I see what happened; in the original it is extremely difficult to see what is his ear, and what isn't, but on closer inspection, it looks like I DID cut part of his ear off (Van Gogh!) - I hope I can put humpty dumpty back together again!

Thanks for pointing it out

[GOLDCOIN]

Had so many different version, went back and looked at them again,

This really looks better, than the first one I posted.

[TylerCruz]

Somebody forgot to attach something hehehe

[GOLDCOIN]

Ooops...picture didn't upload that time.....

[TylerCruz]

Flora,

I just spent about 6 hours trying to copy what you did, but I can't! I did however improve it a bit, which made me a bit happy.. what got me most was how you did the eyes.. that's amazing!

http://www.movie-vault.com/darren2.jpg (710 MBs) - Updated Version.

[Flora]

Hi TylerCruz,

Just went to see what you did with this very difficult picture ... I think you did a wonderful job!!

Here are the steps I took with your picture:

Tonal Adjustment:
1) Duplicate Layer (Blending = Color Burn, Opacity 20%)
2) Duplicate the new Layer (change Blending to Multiply, Opacity 20%)
3) Curves (you can find a snapshot of the curves which I used on another picture here)
4) Merge Visible (To merge visible without losing any correction Layer, keeping the 'Alt' key pressed, click on 'Merge Visible' in the Layer Palette).

Noise:
1) Duplicate Layer.
2) Dust&Scratches (increase Radius until most of the noise has disappeared, increase Treshold to get some of the details back)
3) Add a Layer Mask(Hide All)and with a Black Eraser, erase on the mask the parts you want to reveal...(careful not to lose too many details around eyes, nose and mouth ...). Adjust Layer Opacity...I try to avoid the over smooth 'plastic look.
4) For smaller areas: Blur Tool (choose the appropriate Mode, Opacity = 20 -80%)

Enhancing Features:
What I usually do is create new empty Layer upon new empty Layer playing with Blendings and Opacity until I get the result I like. For your picture, I did the following:

Eyes:
1) Create a new empty Layer (Blending = Luminosity, Opacity 100%), and with a fuzzy Black Brush (Opacity 5%)paint over eyebrows, eyelids, and lashes line to increase depht. Decreasing the Brush diameter carefully paint a very thin line around the irises border.
2) Create a new empty Layer(Blending = Overlay, Opacity 100%)and with a fuzzy White Brush (Opacity 5%)paint or increase the catchlights to give the eyes a more realistic look. Change the colour of the Brush to Black and paint around the catchlights to increase the depth of the pupil.

Mouth, Nose and Cheeks:
1) Create a new empty Layers (Blending = Normal, Overlay, Soft Light, Screen or Color Opacity (?))and with a fuzzy either Black or White Brush (Opacity 5-60%), paint over the features to either increase depth or enhance highlights to give a 3D feeling to the face.

If the corrections result too drastic, you can always blur the 'offending' Layer and add a bit of noise to it to blend it smoothly with the rest of the image ....

Background:
When changing Background, I tend to use a soft Radial Gradient (keeping the colours as close as possible to the original to minimize transition problems), instead of a flat one colour which I, personally, don't like ....
1) To soften the blending with the new Background in your picture I selected the soldier, contracted the selection of 1 Pixel, made a 15 Pixels Border, (CTRL+J)copied it onto its own Layer (Opacity(?)), used the Gaussian Blur Filter to soften it and added a bit of noise to blend it in.

P.S.After Margaret rightly pointed out the 'cropped ear', I tried to reconstruct it ... ...

Goldcoin,

I think you did a very nice job!

[TylerCruz]

LOL - Who is this "Flora"? This Goddess of Restoration.. she mocks us unknowingly with her skills lol

Thanks a lot for that information, Flora - it will proove very useful - I will try it right after I get my car fixed today.

You also fixed the ear! Mike Tyson loses this round!

You are crazy good though.. it's actually kind of humbling

Thanks again..

P.S. - Once I take your tips and work with the image, I will show you the ORIGINAL!! You might like it - because it's horrible, it's ripped, stained, etc.. so the "real" before and the after wlil be dramatic..

This is something that might be a neat idea - get 1 restorator to do half the job, and another to do the other one with 'fresh' eyes.. because the second person will think the half done one is the original, and do a 'full' restoration upon that... do you understand? I'm kind of rambling but when you see the original you might understand..

Thanks again!

[TylerCruz]

Hi Flora,

I followed most of your steps, and I must say that it improved it by a lot! The most useful thing I learned/followed was improving the eyes! Wow!

Here's a Before and After of what I did:

http://www.movie-vault.com/ba_darren.jpg

[Flora]

TylerCruz,

"LOL - Who is this "Flora"? This Goddess of Restoration.. she mocks us unknowingly with her skills lol"

Well, TylerCruz ... this "Flora" is no Goddess of Restoration or of anything else ... just someone saddened if her passion for her hobby and desire to help can make some people think that "she mocks us unknowingly with her skills lol" or that "it's actually kind of humbling" ....

I take your "us" to be a form of royal «We» since I can't remember anyone feeling 'mocked' by somebody else's skills before...not here, not anywhere.

I simply took you at your word when you wrote:

"also,please suggest any suggestions on other thing to improve, and how to
improve it.. feel free to try your knack at the image too! Thanks"

...and again ...

"Yes, PLEASE _do_ share in more detail how you achieved that!"

I thank you for your kind comment:

"I've seen your other work and posts here which prooves you have special skill."

...which, in my opinion, is in strong contrast with the implication you made later:

"This is something that might be a neat idea - get 1 restorator to do half the job, and another to do the other one with 'fresh' eyes.. because the second person will think the half done one is the original, and do a 'full' restoration upon that... do you understand?"...

...and what to say about your...

"You are crazy good though.."

well ... TylerCruz ... NO! I'm not crazy .... YES! I'm good at what I do ....

And for the sake of fairness here is my "real" before and after....

P.S. I didn't restore the very bottom part of the image and the right corner on purpose.

[TylerCruz]

That's crazy.. you are the best restorer I've seen.. and I've seen hundreds..

[bearwolf1]

Flora,
I'm going to side with Tyler. You're AWESOME! I've only recently joined this forum and so have had the interesting option of reading your posts all at once. They're very impressive and very informative.

I'm relatively new and have only been dabbling in restoration for the past year. My work is quite shoddy in comparison of yours: Van Gogh or Rembrandt versus 4 year old with crayons!

I'm learning much faster in the last month after joining both this forum and the Adobe forum. With expertise such as yours, my learning rate will more than double. (I'm on a mission for my mother: she found a relative with glass slides that are about 100 years old and wants me to scan them in, fix them, and then provide the results back to her.) I need to be reasonably good at doing the restoration work by next May, and so have been reading the books by Katrinn Eisman and Richard Lynch (as I currently use PS Elements). But your work is easily on par with theirs and can give more specific examples.

Richard