Glass Reconstruction

[Fazools]

I have reached a standstill due to staring at this photo too long. I could use some new eyes and advice on it.

There are some areas that I am not sure how to attack and I am sure that they are simple Photoshop things. There is also an ear reconstruction that I have to do, and I am sure that with enough searching I can find one to base or copy over but I thought I would throw it in there as well.

1. How should I best create a contrast between the womans hair/face and the background in photoshop? Is this where extracting comes in? I am unsure how to seperate the background best in order to add a darker tone.

2. How should I go about best adding in shadows evenly into the clothing on the child? I know I can use the burn tool, or come to think of it that trick that Nancy tought me with the layered burn/screen technique, any ideas would be appreciated. I do not want to over do it yet keep it even.

3. Sepia? Greyscale? what color tone would you make this?

Here are some larger versions so you can see more details

ORIGINAL LARGE

RETOUCHED LARGE

Looking forward to any and all (tough) critiques of the work up till now too.

Thanks in advance!! I love this site!!

D

[byRo]

Fazools, you've done a real good job up to here - hope I can give you some ideas..

Originally Posted by Fazools

3. Sepia? Greyscale? what color tone would you make this?

If the original contains only one colour - as is the case here then I would never work in colour

- Apply levels to each channel individually and choose the best mix to make a greyscale image. From now on use only greyscale, save some memory use by changing to greyscale mode too. Applying some tint to make a sepia (without doubt) final image is the absolute last step of the process;

Originally Posted by Fazools

1. How should I best create a contrast between the womans hair/face and the background in photoshop?

I wouldn't worry about this too much. If the woman's face is well-defined in itself you can leave this as is (less is more... )

Originally Posted by Fazools

2. How should I go about best adding in shadows evenly into the clothing on the child? I know I can use the burn tool, or come to think of it that trick that Nancy tought me with the layered burn/screen technique, any ideas would be appreciated. I do not want to over do it yet keep it even.

Unless you consider yourself an "A"rtist I would beware of inventing too much detail that isn't there. A trick would be to divert the attention to the good things you have (woman's face and hair)..

...likewise.....

Originally Posted by Fazools

There is also an ear reconstruction that I have to do...

Don't worry too much. Unless you call people's attention, nobody is going to be inspecting ears too closely. Just leave it sortta in the shadows.

I used a bit of everything in my toolbox and come up with this - if you wish I can post the steps.

Rô

[Fazools]

1. I am not an artist. (Unless pick up artist counts )

That being said, I added the ruffles on the neck, and worked on the womans clothing, where the glass had really cracked and chipped beyond recognition about where her breast bone is. Is what I added to distracting? To me it is VERY noticable because I spent so much time on it but I did not know how else to leave it.

Here is where it was before I started adding to it, I got so hung up on it I very well may have gone way to far.

[Kraellin]

fazools,

first off, i'm a bit curious here; where is this glass coming from? i mean, ok, there is glass over the image, but is the original image stuck to the glass or could the original image be separated out from the glass without damage?

taking the first item, the woman's face and hair and the contrast with the background, attached is an image showing how i'd do it. notice there is a duplicate layer first, then a brightness/contrast adjustment layer and then a blank raster layer.

i first did the brightness/contrast setting. then, on the duped layer i did a histogram adjustment. (i forgot to label that so it still says 'copy of background'). after the histo adjust i go back and adjust the brightness/contrast again.

after i have as much contrast as i think is allowable with those, i then add the blank layer. on this layer i used clone and cloned from a light spot on the background towards the woman's face. on the duped layer with the histo adjust i use the lightness/darkness brush tool to darken her hair (including some speculation on where her hair extends to). the trick then is to simply make those things meet in a smooth transition between the now lightened background and the darkened hair without destroying anything vital.

with the cloning you're going to want to have a fairly small brush most of the time and on mine i set the opacity of the brush to about 50% and simply overlap as i go.

on the lighten/darkness brush, i do this on the duped layer because in psp this wont work on a blank layer. there has to be something there to lighten and/or darken. i used darken at 40% and un-checked the 'continuous' button. that allows for progressive increases with no limits.

the attachment may not show everything well here. i had to compress pretty severely.

the nice thing about this technique is that you can simply turn on and off the layers to see how it compares to the original and if you've screwed things up too much (i usually do ). and this also allows you to throw away a layer if you want to start over without having to throw everything away.

also, normally, i might have done the histo adjust on the duped layer and then duped that and done the lightness/darkness brush on that 2nd duped layer. then, if i had messed up the lighten/darken too much i wouldnt have had to throw away the histo adjust.

and i tend to agree with Ro about the baby's clothing. one, it's not a critical part of the image. the baby's face is, but not the clothing. so, enhance a little if you like, but keep it simple. clean it up, for sure, but let the viewer speculate a bit with his own imagination to some extent. and, since this is an old photo, it's perfectly ok to leave some evidence of that. in fact, some folks insist on 'weathering' an image like this just to keep the age integrity factor intact.

also, one last note. i purposely went a little hard on the contrast to show things up more. you dont have to go as far as i did in the attachment.

craig

[Fazools]

To answer you question about the glass. The photo is stuck to the glass, I did scan it a few different ways, which helped as for crack angles and refraction of light.


In regards to your feedback, I follow you on everything except when you make reference to a raster layer.

I am unclear what that would be in Photoshop, although it very well may be called the same thing in photoshop and I am just showing my lack of knowledge.


Also, I assume that Paintshop Pros Lightness/Darkness brush is like the burn and dodge tool in PS.

Another question, What would you charge to restore this photo. I am still in the learning stages, trenches rather, but I am just curious what you or those in the community that do this professionally would charge for something like this. Would it be an hourly job? or a fixed price? Assuming that you are just delivering it to the client in digital format on a CD.

To be clear, I am not asking so that I can sneak off and charge for this, infact this is my great grandmother holding my grandmother, but I do wonder how this job would fit into the price schedule of a pro.

Thanks

D

[Kraellin]

fazools,

re the glass, ok, thank you. kind of thought that might be the case. depending on how valuable the original is to you, you might want to have that professionally removed and remounted.

as for the lightness/darkness tool, no, in psp we have that tool and the dodge and burn. the dodge and burn tend to alter color a bit, usually in the reds. the lightness/darkness does not. not sure what the equivalent is in ps.

a raster layer is just a normal layer. i usually say raster layer to distinguish between a vector layer, which is less frequently used and usually used for object making and manipulation. you can kind of think of the two as raster = point to point or pixel based and vector = line art, objects, node based. and if all that is confusing, then just ignore the 'raster' in my first post and just think 'layer'.

and regarding what to charge for something like this, that seems to be the million dollar question. there are a couple of threads on this on retouchpro. i'd suggest starting there.

craig

[PatrickB]

Faz, I'm not too much into restauration (not to say not at all), but looking at the picture I remembered some painting I've seen:

http://www.leicestergalleries.com/gfx/15467.jpg

The head of the lady looks pretty flat to me so my idea is to enhance her a bit, especially the contrast.

Well here's my hint:

The best tool for this kind of creative contrast is the dodge and burn tools. But they are pretty unflexible when it comes to redefining modifications and such. It works on the original layer.

If you want to go a little further, try this: Make two copies of the original layer. Set one of them to screen and the other one to multiply. Now add two layers masks with the "hide all" option. Then start painting into the masks to add the dodge and burn to where you want them to go. Using the masks you can always go back and forth and have full control over what you do

[manta1900]

Something like this?
Just tweaking exposure, levels and made B&W...

[Vikki]

I suggest you adjust the contrast with curves or levels on the repaired image (you don't want to pick up the blacks and whites from the damage). Adjust only to the whitest (not your new white collar) and darkest points in the image. Do not try for pure black and white.
I also did a minor adjustment using the "Shadow/Highlight" feature in CS2, to normalize the highlights and shadows (most of the adjustments were to the highlights and not the shadows).
As you can see, this adjustment brings out some flaws in the work (her collar is a bit too white).
It's coming along nicely repair wise.

[Flora]

Hi,

Fazools,

great reconstruction/restoration job!

Following Rô's excellent tip (thank you Rô!)..

If the original contains only one colour - as is the case here then I would never work in colour

- Apply levels to each channel individually and choose the best mix to make a greyscale image. From now on use only greyscale, save some memory use by changing to greyscale mode too. Applying some tint to make a sepia (without doubt) final image is the absolute last step of the process;

... I used a Channel Mixer Adjustment Layer for the greyscale and for adding a bit of contrast and definition already ....

Working (on your restored version) on selected parts only, (loosely selected first ... refined and/or blurred the mask later) I added :

* a Brightness/Contrast A.L. to further increase contrast and definition ..

* Filter>Distort>Diffuse Glow... to increase the 3D feeling in otherwise 'flat' areas...

* two Hue/Saturation A.L.s to add a different light sepia tone to shadows and highlights...

Attachment1 > my final result
Attachment2 > Result after the 'Diffuse Glow' step
Attachment3 > a 100% zoom view of the lady's profile.