Water Damaged photos

[Froggee]

Flora,

Okay I have stared for hours and now I think tears of frusteration are setting in. Here I am looking over and over at this amazing job you did and thinking to myself..... "I have been fairly good in photoshop with logo designs and manipulation and editing of recent digital photos" Why can I not get this?

You pulled out amazing color. I actually dumped the photo the other day thinking I could never make it look good, but chose it because it was a photo of my mom and me. Then you show me that it can be done and hope is back.
So after hours of staring and thinking and patching, even did the coloring that you suggested to bring back the color. I am even failing with that. I can not seem to get the amazing colors that you were able to pull out of that photo. My hair is a great yellow and not so dark on the top, mom has amazing highlights in her hair, and both our skin tones look great..... I seem to get a washed out image, still very dark in areas that I would like lighter (as you managed to accomplish).

I am so greatful for the help you have offered thus far. I wouldn't still be here looking at this photo if not for you The determination to get a personal gift to my mom this Sunday is even stronger. I really want something more than the generic card and gift certificate......

Well off to get the kids from school. BTW, the kids are not triplets, I don't think I could have managed infant triplets We are in the process of adopting twin boys that are a month younger than our 11 year old daughter. My husband and I have 3 girls, Kristin 14, Kelli 11 and Kaitlyn 9. We have had the boys now for about 2 1/2 years. They are currently children of the state. We have them because I knew them and saw where they live and what they came from. Abandoned crack houses, dumpster food, physically, sexually and emotional abused. I still can't believe what they lived in. We tried for a few years to just bring them to our home on weekends, give them clothes and gifts but it didn't help, the toys and clothes where just being traded and/or sold for drugs......

[Ed_L]

I hope at some time in their lives, they realize how lucky they were to have someone like you and your husband get involved. The world needs more people like you. God bless you.

Ed

[Froggee]

Thanks

There are days that I question my sanity..... More so than not................


Especially now when I want so bad to do something and yet I can't get a peaceful moment to think....... My best friend just dropped off her 3 along with my 5 + my afterschool daycare kid in the afternoons. Believe it or not it is not my friend's 2 year old son, not even her 4 year old son that is driving to the end, it is her 9 year old son that is taking me on a monarail ride to the insane asylum The kid is just sitting in my daughters room screaming through the house because the Gamecube isn't working...... I don't think a child has passed over yet from not being able to play a video game on demand............

Okay I really need to focus on this photo, or I am just going to be the "other" daughter that sent a card........ Because I am not going to get the kudo's for the nice *Pro* looking portrait picture I took of my pregger sister and her hubby

[Noelf]

A few things

One, photo restoration is a speciality in photoshop. It definitely takes a lot of practice and deep understanding of photoshop manipulation. So don't be discouraged that you aren't seeing the results that you might want early. It takes a lot of practice to reach really successful levels.

Two, the photo you have there, is probably one of the more difficult photos I've seen come through here in the recent few months. So make sure you realize you are also dealing with a very complex restoration there

Photos as a whole are also one of the more difficult things to manipulate. When you make a logo, you can say "yep, it's green and red". But you know what a person should look like, and you know that a person shouldn't be green in a photo, so it makes it more difficult to make everything "fit" into what your mind is expecting to see!

I would definitely recommend continuing doing the restorations, they are a lot of fun to work with! Keep reading tutorials, and always make sure to ask for help here, even if it is a smaller issue. Sometimes it is the smallest issues that can make or break a restoration.

- Noel

[Froggee]

Thank you Noelf......

I have a question. Do you know why it is if I select a shadowed area and patch over it with a lighter area the end result is a lighter shadowed area?


This patch tool and I are definetly going around and around. I found that if I do the color adjustments first then when I attempt to patch or clone to an area it clones the lighting but not the mark that is there...........

[Noelf]

I personally would stay away from the patch tool for now.

Use the healing brush and the clone tools for most of your work.

A great tutorial resource beyond here, is Janee's site. She has tutorials on a lot of subjects, including photo restoration.

http://myjanee.home.insightbb.com/tutorials.htm

Take a look there, you will find a lot of good info

- Noel

[Froggee]

Thank you all for your help, I have learned a lot from this experiance.......

I am just not cut out for this restoration stuff. I think I will just send the photo out to be professionally done later in the year. Maybe a Christmas gift.

I think for this Mother's Day I will stick with what I am good at..... Photography.

I will just torture my girls one more time and force some pictures out of them tomorrow......

Thanks everyone

[roger_ele]

Froggee

Happy mothers day, this should give you something that you can work with. I added noise half way through and then resized larger later - should have resized first. This isn't perfect - if it was a client job I would do some pieces over, but it should work for what you want - you are welcome to use it.

This is a hard one - and why i didn't jump in with all sorts of detail help to start with - this is the type of image that can be overwelming when starting out. Also, in Photoshop there are ten ways to do anything - learning them all at once can be confusing.

Good luck,
Roger

[Flora]

Originally Posted by Ed_L

I hope at some time in their lives, they realize how lucky they were to have someone like you and your husband get involved. The world needs more people like you. God bless you.

Ed

This is exactly what I feel ....

....Obviously I'm not the only one who had this idea....

I resized the picture and just levelled and faded the background a bit....There is still a lot to do .... but, until you get it the way you want it ...(you can count on all of us for help)... if you like it, use it anyway you wish....
Please, let me know if you'd like the full size.....

Happy Mother's day to a wonderful Mother....