Is it possible to repair fire damage?

[dipech]

Hi Everyone!

This is picture damaged in a fire. Wondering what is the best that can be done with it?

I have tried replacing the red channel, but that ended up losing the proper colors and making the damaged leg areas only a little better.

Any suggestions??

Diane

[Gary Richardson]

Hi Diane, had a quick go at it, selected discoloured area and colour corrected using auto colour. Selected legs and pasted to new layer, then desaturated red in that layer. Created new colour layer, and coloured legs using colours sampled from good areas. Created new layer set to Overlay filled with 50% grey, and burned and dodged to even tone on legs. Flattened layers, and did final colour correction to image using colour balance. Total time about 20 mins.

[Flora]

Hi,

Great job, Gary!

Diane,

...I had a go at your picture which, beside the fire damage, was a bit too contrasty in the middle and a bit too faded on the sides...

Here is what I did:

• Used the curves, adding a gradient Black to Transparent to the Curves' Mask, to balance the uneven contrast.

• Loosely selected the very faded, discolored bottom part of the picture and corrected the colour by using the Levels on each Channel individually.

• To bring back some details, I used Method1 (Curves), described in my tutorial, on the selection .... duplicated the Curves Layer changing the Blending of the duplicate to Color and decreasing the Opacity until I was satisfied.

• Still working on the selected area, I created a Brighness&Contrast Adjustment Layer and 'played' with the sliders until legs etc. were balanced with the rest of the picture.

• Used the Levels and Color Balance to further correct tone and colour.

• Created empty Layers (Blendings: Overlay, Soft Light and Color) to selectively enhance or correct different parts of the picture wich still needed fixing.

• Finally, I slightly sharpened the image with USM.

[Gary Richardson]

Tremendous work Flora, but then your work is always excellent. Love the overall balance of the image, and restoration of colour in the trees and bushes.

[dipech]

Flora,

Like Gary said, once again you've done a tremendous, beautiful job!!!

Gary,

Yours is really great also!!

But Flora, I am having alot of trouble following all your steps on this one.

Specifically, I don't understand:

"Used the curves, adding a gradient Black to Transparent to the Curves' Mask, to balance the uneven contrast"

1. How do you add a gradient to Curves?

2. Did you select more than just the faded leg areas??

3. How far were you able to get with step 2, correcting the color with levels?

4. On the step re bringing back some of the details, should this all be done on a separate layer with just the legs?


Somehow I got to the version posted below, but I have no idea how I got there as I combined some of the steps in Gary's version, particularly
desaturating the red channel. But that ended up losing all the red in the picture and the green trees aren't brightening up, etc etc ....
Diane

[Gary Richardson]

Hi, I selected only the legs, and pasted them to a new layer, then de-saturated the red in that layer only. That way colour balance is not disturbed in the rest of the image. I do it in a seperate layer just so I have the advantage of being able to use blending and opacity options.

[Flora]

Hi Gary, Diane,

thank you so much for your great feedback!

Diane,

Originally Posted by dipech

1. How do you add a gradient to Curves?

Sorry Diane, I should have specified .... whenever I write that I use Curves, Levels, etc. .... I mean Curves, Levels, etc. Adjustment Layers .... which, by default, come with a Layer mask ....

Originally Posted by Flora

Used the curves, adding a gradient Black to Transparent to the Curves' Mask.....

I try to not make changes I can't easily correct .... that's why I work a lot with Masks/LayerMasks.... But, if you'd rather apply the changes to the whole Layer directly, I advise you to duplicate it first, and add a Layer Mask to it later if you think you'd rather cover/fade/minimize the new changes from selected parts of the image....

Originally Posted by dipech

2. Did you select more than just the faded leg areas??

Not really .... just loosely around legs and feet ... wherever it was faded ....

Originally Posted by dipech

3. How far were you able to get with step 2, correcting the color with levels?

...Quite far actually .... When in the Level box, if you move the outer sliders to the beginning of the histogram peak (on one or both sides as necessary)... for each individual Channel, you'll notice that the 'reddish' cast practically vanishes and the overall contrast improves....

Originally Posted by dipech

4. On the step re bringing back some of the details, should this all be done on a separate layer with just the legs?

No....I just added the 'tutorial' Curves Adjustment Layer and duplicated it changing as in the third point of my description...

Hope this helps...

[dipech]

Flora,

Thank you so much for taking the time to write this out for me! I started over and things went better this time, though I still was not able to get so far after doing the initial levels adjustment on all the channels...

It does start to get a little confusing when you have lots of these adjustment layers and the file size approaches 500mb. How long do you tend to wait before merging the layers?

Here is my latest version. I know the skin tone is still a bit too yellow, but this is about the best I've gotten it after making a number of selective color adjustments. Color balance didn't help or maybe I don't know how to use it well enough yet...

Take care,
Diane