Photo Restoration - - Background too dark..Suggestions Please

nebgranny · #1 05-02-2006, 11:37 AM

Hello All:
Although I have been coming to the site for awhile now, I am still very new to working with Photoshop and restoring pictures.

I have a photo I am working on for my friends neighbor who will be attending his 70th class runion..can you imagine??

This is a baby picture of his son and I am working on it to be placed in a powerpoint presentation for that event. I do not like the background I cloned behind his head on both sides. I think it looks like a tornado is about to hit..LOL Can someone please help with suggestions on how to improve it please.

I plan to try and use Vikki's tutorial on Masks for the face, but I find it sometimes does not look clear after I do this. What might I be doing wrong there? Thanks for the help. I am working on it as I post. Neb

Posting the original and my try.you will see the difference I am sure.

Kraellin · #2 05-02-2006, 01:06 PM

hehe, neb... it DOES look like a tornado

there are several ways you can handle this. one would be with a lighten/darken brush. just go over the area with the lighten part.

another would be to mask out the face and use a brightness/contrast adjustment layer.

and yet another would be to clone from the lighter part of the background into the darker.

and that's just three ways to do it. mask and curves would work. mask and levels. mask and 32 band gray plugin would work. you could even use one of those filters like Cybia's Alphaworks and completely remove the dark area and replace it with something else.

so, lots to choose from here. my preference would probably be the simple clone one.

craig

nebgranny · #3 05-02-2006, 05:34 PM

Thanks for all the suggestions Craig. I am with you on the clone method. I took a soft brush and did lighten and it worked very nicely. I am almost done with it but still working on the lips. Needed a break , I bet you know how that goes right?? Neb

Cameraken · #4 05-02-2006, 07:20 PM

Hi Neb.

That vertical line in the background is just a shadow but you have cloned in a very hard edge to it. Try lowering the opacity of the clone tool to about 10% to blur the edges.

Or you could do as I did and clone it right out.
I also blurred the whole picture, added noise and a hide all mask and painted back the background.

As for the lips.
Add a blank layer and paint out the marks, then again, add noise to match.

Ken.

Kraellin · #5 05-02-2006, 09:59 PM

neb,

you're welcome and good

yup...lots of breaks

craig

Gary · #6 05-03-2006, 02:01 AM

And yet another way wold be to isolate and make a copy of the subject, apply a gradient to the BG and lay the subject copy over-top.

Flora · #7 05-03-2006, 06:02 AM

Hi everybody,

Neb,

for a "as close as possible to the original" look .... including the shadow, I used the Patch Tool and Healing Brush (set to Replace first and Normal later) .... Because of how the image was cropped, I couldn't do any better for the nose ... meaning borrowing a good part from the other half of his nose ....

I know I sound like a broken record..

... but I can't insist enough on the importance of size and resolution of the pictures posted which can be up to 100kb in size... this was only 17.4kb ... the smaller the picture the less details to work on ...

nebgranny · #8 05-06-2006, 07:21 PM

Hi Flora:
I am glad to see you. I miss your posts a lot. At the time of the post I did not have the persons permission to post , but now she felt it would be ok. That is why the crop of the photo.

I am going to post my results.My friend is happy with it, but I know in my heart it could be better. I would like to have kept it more to the original color. It is a bit yellow. Also Ken, I did clone a bit heavy, learning to keep opacity down some. Now I am going to post my results, I ask honest yet gentle critiques.

I just realized I had my first anniversary in March of being a member here. Geez, does not seem like a year has gone by since I first started learning here. Thanks for all your help and teaching!! Neb

nebgranny · #9 05-07-2006, 10:19 AM

I wish to make a comment about my last post. I guess it might look like it was directed to Flora and in a way it was, however I would invite others to respond and give opinion on the restore.

I have missed seeing Flora post and hope to hear back from her as soon as she is able, but I do wish to say I also respect the opinions and talents of the many many other posters here at retouch. Thanks Neb

Kraellin · #10 05-07-2006, 11:09 AM

neb,

yup, we all miss flora. we're going to have to talk to her husband about all this gypsy lifestyle stuff

and happy anniversary! (i hit mine not too long ago as well. is it a year already?)

as for your piece, the first thing i do when i look at these is overlay the attachments and click back and forth looking to see if the original figure still looks like the original figure. yours does, so, well done! that's 90% of the work. so often you see in cloning work the evidence of cloning itself. features get altered, a nose gets clipped, an eye partially cut or clipped by the clone tools and so on. yours didnt do this. the features remained intact. so, well done!

you missed a bit on duplicating the shadows of the original, but that's in the background and of secondary importance.

i also wonder just a bit about the line on the nose where that one scratch/tear was. you seemed to avoid doing anything there and i'm thinking there shld be a tiny bit more shadow there. (his left side of the nose, near the tip where that one hole was). it's a small thing and doesnt really distract from the overall, but i was just wondering about it.

and lastly, i'd clean up the white of that collar a bit. it looks 'dirty' still. it does need to keep a bit of texture/shading, but it just looks dirty. you dont want it pure white and you do want to maintain the look and feel of the overall image, but i think we can say that part of that is dirt and could stand to go. just be careful of a monotone if you do do this; you dont want that either.

the rest is preference. i'd be very tempted to change the contrast between the person and the background to 'bring him forward' in the image, to make him stand out more. but, some folks dont like to do that because it doesnt 'maintain the original quality and character' of the image. so, that's just a preferences thing.

overall, it's a very nice job. you've maintained the integrity of the main portion of the image through some difficult fixes and that's the main thing! cloning is always dangerous. it's like sculpting with dynamite in that you're always in danger of removing too much. so, well done!

craig