Repair Sticky tape damage

[Teresa]

Hi, I am a newbie to this forum and am looking for some help. Here is a snipit of a photo I am trying to restore. The lady's arm and the baby's arm were badly damaged by sticky tape. Any iedas on how best to re-construct.... or is this an impossible task.

Teresa

[Kraellin]

hi teresa,

and welcome to the forums

this looks like a job for clone and heal. what program are you going to be working with?

for a simple clone job, i'd start on the woman's arm and work downwards, replacing the damaged area with the good parts above. this allows you to keep the patterns and textures of the dress that are intact and 'clone' them into the damaged area. when you hit the elbow and have to start going horizontally, simply find another area of the picture that is undamaged and looks in your estimation like it could fill in and replace the damaged area and continue on with your cloning.

when you hit her hand, there is enough evidence to tell the general outline, but not a lot to clone from. you can either try to rebuild this with simple paint brushes or maybe clone from her facial skin to reconstruct the hand.

and this same procedure pretty much works on the baby's arms and hands, but a bit more difficult because of the extent the damage goes to and the size you're working with, but the technique would mostly be the same. but that's only for the baby's left arm.

her right arm is a bit difficult to tell. it appears, without downloading this to my drive, that it may be going out towards the mother's hand. if that's the case, then i'm going to guess that you might want to do a bit more hand work here with a simple brush.

but yes, i do think you could reconstruct most all of this without too much difficulty. it might take some time and patience, but do-able.

Craig

[Teresa]

Hi Craig,

Thanks for the reply (and the welocme). I am using Photoshop 7 and am somewhat familiar with the clone tool. Sometimes I find it makes the pattern look a little 'flat'. Good idea about taking samples from the lady's face though. The baby's right hand is a real problem as even in the original hard copy print it is near impossible to make out. If I get anywhere I will post the results

Teresa

[Kraellin]

you're welcome.

the clone tool is very powerful and yes, you can make things look flat or pasty. i'd recommend starting on the mother's arm and working down. in fact, it's a good practive to take the easy parts first. in this case, it's the mother's arm and the baby's arm and some of the baby's blouse/dress.

i usually set the clone tool at something around 60% opacity to start out and just dab, dab, dab. if you hold it down and move it you get a very repetitive look that wont look right in most instances. and i'll overlap my dabs. this puts more of the texture you're pulling from there and also lets you see what's going on as you work. and dont be afraid of the undo command. i may have 100 dabs or more and just pull them all and start over. usually, i can catch most things before that, however.

also, dont be too hard on yourself if it just doesnt look right. this picture is badly damaged. anything you can do which improves it is fine....anything!

and dont set your clone area at just one area. that's fine to start and make major changes and get some texture, but you'll get a very obvious repetitive look if you dont change the 'set' mark from time to time. come at a problem area from different directions so that you're pulling varying textures and luminace levels from transition areas, like from a lit area to a shadow. this will give you a better blending. pay attention to not only colors, but luminance and texture.

and when you're working with a major reconstruction spot, pay attention to the overall picture lighting. notice where the light is coming from and where the shadows are falling so that you can reproduce this in areas you need to reconstruct.

ok, that's enough for now. i did pull your picture to my drive and took a shot at some of the easy areas. i also noticed that i dont think the baby's right arm is coming out to her mother's hand. i think, and mind you it's hard to tell for sure, that the baby's right arm is crossing over her own body towards her other arm and she might even be holding her own hand. it's very tough to tell.

i'm attaching two pics here. the first is just my work on the easy parts and what clone can do. and the second shows a closeup of the hands and where i think her right arm and hand are. the arrow shows how her left hand fingers are pointing down to maybe join the other. the circle shows her right elbow fairly clearly and the two long lines show where i think maybe her right arm is.

but frankly, it's just a guess.

Craig

[Teresa]

Craig,

I really appreciate you time and advice on this. Also thanks for the work you did on the pic. It give me a visual impression of what it should be like and what I can do with clone. You certainly have given me some really good pointers and I agree any improvement has got to be better than the current picture. I am now going to block out some time for this. It will serve as a great training curve if I manage to get this done.

Just one other thing, a friend suggested looking for a picture of a baby where the hands we positioned in a similar fashion to this one. Could this be done where both pictures were merged or cloned from one to the other (taking into account the texture and lighting etc.) to produce a feasible outcome

Teresa

[Flora]

Hi Teresa,

Welcome to RP!

Craig is right ... and I would also do what he suggested should some vital feature be reconstructed .... but when it comes to hands, arms, legs etc., well, digitally speaking of course, I wear my Dr. Frankenstein hat and simply 'borrow' body parts from other pictures ... as you or your friend already suggested:

Originally Posted by Teresa

Just one other thing, a friend suggested looking for a picture of a baby where the hands we positioned in a similar fashion to this one. Could this be done where both pictures were merged or cloned from one to the other (taking into account the texture and lighting etc.) to produce a feasible outcome

... It was done quickly and I didn't make an extensive search for the right 'parts'.... just to show what can be achieved ...
As for 'body parts' you can look in our Archive or, in internet, here or here

.... OOOps ..I'd forgotten the attachment!!!

[Kraellin]

well, as dr. flora frankenstein points out, that would be another way to go. you can hardly even see the scars

Craig

[Teresa]

Thanks flora, that's pretty amazing work - It sure gives an idea of what is possible. Lateral thinking and all that.

Thanks to one and all for your help and advice. I obviously still need loads of practice if you guys can do that and so fast too....

I just have to say that this has got to be the best places for a wealth of cumulative knowledge on photo restoration. Other sites give hints etc. but here it's so much better with real life examples to work with. Again many thanks and I feel I may be coming back here again.


"looking forward to passing the knowledge on"

[Kraellin]

yup, flora does amazing work.

and you're welcome

by all means, come again and hang out. the first time i came here i was hooked.

Craig