her daughter died of cancer (Help me)

[Gary Richardson]

Hi Dave,

I'm like Flora, in that I generally just eyeball things.

Agree with you totally that you can't do a global colour change on this one.

My impressions are as follows.

Iris colour good, don't think that needs touching at all.

Skin, looks good, but I reserve judgement because Background and Hair seem too red, and distract eye.

I would suggest reducing red in Background and Hair, and I think this will balance things out, enabling a better judgement of skin, which I think is pretty near the mark.

Wish I had some numbers I could throw at you. (I'll have a try at this using your image if you don't mind.)

Gary

[Gary Richardson]

Hi Dave, had a play with your image.

First put a series of eyedroppers in the following places.

Background to left of girls head about level with her hairline. (R221,G194,B192)
Hair in mid tone area to left of girls mouth.(R151,G80,B99)
White of girls eye. (forgot to note, and have removed now).

Applied Curves Adj Layer, and using Red Channel mostly, adjusted to give girls eye a neutral tone (all channels equal). Masked skin, but this looked too pink, so used 40% grey and painted on mask to partially reveal skin.

Hair looked wrong, so applied colour balance adj layer and increased yellow and red to get colour I wanted, reduced layer opacity to 73% as colour was too intense.

Final Colour Dropper Numbers

Background (R185,G194,B192)
Hair (R104,G80,B72)
Eyes (All numbers equal)

Oops sorry forgot, on the Curves Adj Mask, masked out irises to reveal your colour, but it was a bit too saturated for image after I'd adjusted, so used a mid grey (darker than 50%) to partially mask.

Bit of a quick job, so some of the masking is not as good as it should be.

[Flora]

Hi BobNSA

Welcome to RP!

I think you did a great job! Maybe a bit too much contrast ... (you lost most details ih her hair) and her eyes should be hazel ...

Ken,

Originally Posted by Cameraken

Flora decided

This sentence was meant to be humorous. I.e. I thought there was something in the picture but I was wrong.
I thought about this and my wife tells me it could make someone sound overbearing or dictatorial if it was taken literally. If that’s the way you read it then I apologise. ....

.....You speak three languages. I only speak 2, English and Rubbish


Ken.

Thank you for explaining that to me ... and thanks to your wife for her understanding .... She hit the nail on the head because that is the way I interpreted it ...

As for your 'second' language ... I can speak it too .... and use it quite regularly .... I shoud add it in the 'Spoken Languages' section in my curriculum!!!

Dave,

Originally Posted by Duv

Flora, I absolutely agree with you but in the absence of information..
Dave

That's why, for me, it is very important to try and restore all possible 'original' informations at the very beginning of a restoration ....

I downloaded all your versions and compared them (skin only) ... Your last one is, in my opinion, absolutely the best ... but, like Gary, I still see a bit too much red ...

I agree that skin tone and colour can be the 'make or break' of portraits ... but, in my opinion, if a 'perfect' skin (often achieved after a lot of efforts) is surrounded by distracting over/under saturated or very badly off-colour elements it loses its 'magic' impact ...
_______________________

Gary and I work in a very similar way ... one difference is that he 'braves' the 'numbers' as well and I don't! ...

I couldn't agree more with him on the fact that "you can't do a global colour change on this one" and, I'd like to add that, in my opinion, it's very rare the case where you can fix a picture with a 'global' correction or adjustment ... be it for tone, contrast or colour ....

No matter if you use the numbers or if you simply 'eyeball' therefore simply 'move the sliders' like I do ... if you 'tweak' the reds to get a better skin colour, all the reds in the picture will be altered.

If the picture is unevenly faded, and as Ken pointed out "dyes must fade differently" ... this can lead to very bad results.... For this reason I use Layer masks for everything ... I.e. if by correcting the skin other colours have been nearly 'obliterated' ... keep the skin only and cover the rest with a mask .... Once you see the 'new' perfect skin in the otherwise untouched background ... you might realise that it isn't that perfect after all and still needs tweaking ....

I've been asked very often how I get to my results ... I think that it's just my stubborness in trying everything I know on the details while trying to never lose the 'overall' view ...

[Duv]

Gary..Flora. Thanks a bunch for your input! I think I'm closer to a result that I can live with and will factor in your suggestions as I move from global to specific. Good point too Flora about how the skin tone might need tweaking after balancing the other details like the hair and background. Gary, nice result although I was a teenie bit surprised with equal values for the whites of the eyes as I always thought there should be higher red value due to the underlying effect of blood vessels but not sure how valid that is. Anyhow, I'm now in my tweaking mode. Thanks again for taking the time and helping!

Cheers
Dave

[Cameraken]

This is a great picture. Beautiful girl. Great pose, High res. And difficult. I just can’t leave it alone.
It would make a great picture to go into the challenges section.

Like everyone has found it can’t be done in one step.
Also there is no real black point or grey point. The only real guide to colour is the whites of her eyes.

Even working from the edges does not help as they are faded but just not as much.

Here is my second attempt using a more conventional method

Eyedropper on faded blue and non faded edge blue
Used curves and mask to match main picture to edges.
Select all > Copy merged > Paste.

Eyedropper on white border (this should be white)
Used curves to make white
Select all > Copy merged > Paste.

The eyes are still not white (but not too far off) so some selective adjustments will be required.
Eyedropper on white of eye (this should be white)
Used curves to make white
Decided at this point to use the pupil for my black point and set that as well
Select all > Copy merged > Paste.

Used curves for skintone with layer mask to affect skin only

hue/sat and boosted master saturation

The hair still looked wrong so I opened my swatches and sampled a similar colour
Used curves and layer mask to correct

Touch up Marks etc

Well at least her blouse is yellow this time but I prefer the skin tone on my first post.


Ken.

[Kraellin]

i doubt the woman whose picture this is would find anything wrong with it, ken. nice job!

Craig

[lamedos]

Thought I'd have a quick play at this. I am new to this so be gentle.

FFT
Curves
Colour Balance on whole image
select face - masked colour balance
cloning of various spots and dust etc

Total time about 20 minutes

[Kraellin]

pretty darn good for being 'new to this', lamedos

Craig

[Duv]

Welcome aboard Lamedos! Have to agree with Craig, a really good effort. My only suggestion is be careful using too much contrast. Her forehead is a bit blown out and much of the hair is pitch black not containing detail.
Hope to see many more posts from you!

Cheers
Dave

[lamedos]

Hey guys

Thanks for the comments. Been a member here for a while but probably haven't logged on for over a year - had a go at a couple of restoration challenges, the "ripped to shreds, torn & three cups of coffee" types but really didn't do too well.

As I said, this was a "quick & dirty" play at the image - I don't understand all this swapping channels and measuring colour with the eye dropper stuff - just did it by eye. Only know basic PS stuff.

I know what you mean about the hair - spending a bit more time I might have done a masked curves layer on that. Dunno about totally black though - must be my monitor setup. Dave, I had a look at your image and I see red and green blobs in the hair - is that my monitor? Craig, might be blind but I couldn't see yours?

Thanks again guys - I'll definately post some more after reading some of the tutorials.

Cheers

Roy

[Kraellin]

lamedos,

i didnt do one on this one. others seemed to have it well in hand.

Craig

[Cameraken]

Flora
I was just looking back through the postings here. Your posting about ‘decided’ shook me so much that I have just realised that I did not thank you for your reply to my question about CMYK.

You made some excellent points about colour which I will keep in mind in the future.

Thank you once again.

Ken.

[Flora]

Hi,

Ken,

Great job! .... I agree with you about the skin though... it might be my monitor ... but it seems to have a a slight magenta/bluish tinge ...

Originally Posted by Cameraken

...I have just realised that I did not thank you for your reply to my question about CMYK.

You made some excellent points about colour which I will keep in mind in the future.

Thank you once again.

You are welcome! ... Glad if I could be of any help ...

lamedos,

Welcome to RP!

Nice job! ... Even if I have to agree with Dave about the solid block of dark colour hiding nearly all details in her hair ... as usual, it might be my monitor ... but her skin seems a bit too yellow .... but, after reading this Thread, you know we all had problems with the colours of this picture .... particularly with the skin ...

[lamedos]

Hey Flora - thanks for the welcome!

I think you're being a touch too kind with the "it might be my monitor" comment! Looking at some of your work on here I'd bet an entire weeks chocolate marshmallows budget on the fact that it's more to do with the fact that I haven't a clue what I'm doing.

Cheers

Roy

[Duv]

Roy, I'm pleased to tell you, your chocolate marshmallows are safe. No one produces corrected images the way Flora does. Period!! Having said that, I personally have a tough time adjusting images by "feel" as Flora does it. I "think" I would prefer a workflow that involves numbers corrections followed by Flora's " feel" to give newbies, et all, a chance a getting close to a great image.
I think as one who is trying to get to Flora's level is that you have two choices: admire and somehow try to achieve her work thru trial and error on each image (which can't be matched) or start with conservative adjustments and then playing from there. I think my lame bottom line is this: If you're happy with Flora's superb renditions, print it off and enjoy. There's probably nothin coming along that is going to be better. Know that too, Flora's feel comes with years of experience. I'm still trying to help you understand the numbers so that one day you can move beyond and correct instinctifly as Flora does.
The bottom line is there probably is nothing really wrong with you monitor. I get the same generosity from this lady. Thank you Flora..

Dave