HELP!!! Massive silvering problem on client photo.

[solitear]

Thanks, Craig....... these were my steps:

1. Channel Mixer with Mono checked

2. Flattened

3. Using the rectangle lasso thing selected an area of the photo with good contrast

4. Clicked the Add Adj. layer icon at the bottom of layers palette > Levels

5. In Levels dialog box, clicked 'Options' selected Enhanced Mono thing & Snap Neutral... clicked Ok, Ok... to get out

6. Using a hard, white brush 100% opacity, I painted over the whole thing which got rid of most silvering (I don't know a thing about steps 3 - 6 and just do them like a trained Rhesus monkey.... something I read somewhere)

7. Flattened and got to work adding noise to flat areas, then Neat Image to gently remove noise

8. Kept adding noise and using Neat Image alternately to even out everything

9. Added a Soft Light layer w/50% Gray

10. Using the Dodge tool set to Midtones at 20% opacity went over those dark spots..... then used the Burn tool > Midtones > 10-20% opacity to darken too light areas....

11. Flattened everything, Duplicated layer set to Soft Light

12. To sharpen, went to Filter > Other > High Pass .... you can watch it sharpening as you adj. the slider (Vikki Hansen trick)

13. Flattened and used 'Platinum' in a Photoshop Black & White Toning action (I'll have to try and find who wrote it)

This was so tough it made you 'feel like doing something the Devil wouldn't do'

oxox
Beth

[solitear]

Last one and, it's so late/early (2:31am) I truly don't have much of a clue as to what I did.... you know, you start messing around with it and it 'looks better so you don't want to lose your momentum writing down steps' kinda thing....

I know I didn't use any de-noise.... un-noise..... or anti-noise filter and I didn't add noise..... did use dodge and burn but my favorite thing (and something I used on my earlier version) was another Vikki Hansen trick.... you guys may already know about it but it's new to me.....

For the lady seated, first from OUR left, whose top had the blown highlights I:

Loosely selected the top > copied > pasted to a new file

Opened the Channels and selected the Red channel

Image > Adjs. > Equalize (did this to each channel in turn) - clicked on RGB in channels palette before next step

Copied and pasted the top over the blown out top (you can set that layer's blend mode to screen but I think I just used a Levels adj. so as to not fade the darks too much)

Erased lightened fringe and flattened.

Chose a Duotone gray and mauve color... I think


That's it for me....... now I'm tired AND hungry......

Beth

[Cassidy]

etrnluv,

Using your retouched version (which is very good by the way), I used the Image->Adjustments->Shadow/Highlight which gives you a bit more control over the midranges in the photo (using photoshop CS2). I initially wound up the midtones but then I pulled back the midtones a bit as the jacket on the left was looking very blurry and smudgy.

Backread and saw your second image, same applies and second pic here is same adjustment though a tad varied in settings

[unimatrix001]

I didn't work much on anything but the silvering. as mentioned above you can probably get better results from the original scan.

[Kraellin]

beth,

thank you. i hadnt thought of using the channel mixer in monochrome. that helped.

definitely a difficult image and i'm still working on it. i tried splitting the channels and remixing some of them, but havent found a good combo on that yet. also tried correcting individual channels while they were split and then re-combining, but that hasnt proved very useful either. channel mixer gave me the best results so far. levels also helped.

mike's solution would be great if you had the original and the equipment to work his magic and the tutorial using the double copy of the image would be great if you had the original to scan also (or the client could do it reliably), but being that sometimes you get these images with no access to the original, i've been trying to do a straight digital solution and so far, i'm not happy with what i've gotten.

i have managed to find an arm that was almost blacked out and i've managed to lighten some parts and clone others, but it's a slow process this way. and aside from the carpet, i'm thinking there isnt much useful in the background and may just replace it (i normally dont like to do this, as it isnt a true restore). i've also mangaged to reduce the silvering 'shine' but there's a lot of noise and a lot of lost detail in the image itself.

so, i think i'll go bang my head on a wall for now... much more satisfying and i get instant results

[Cupcake]

My take on this picture.

[solitear]

i've also managed to reduce the silvering 'shine' but there's a lot of noise and a lot of lost detail in the image itself.

I know what you mean, Craig..... hence my first fuzzy family.... I sort of got lost as you and Mike were talking about taking a picture with polarized lights and running it through a nuclear accelerator thereby converting the cyclotron from an internal to an external beam ..... And you thought YOU needed to bang your head against a wall.....

oxox
Beth

[solitear]

Cupcake..... very striking restoration! It would make a beautiful large, framed, family portrait.

Beth

[Syd]

Etrnluv I only realise now that you replaced the background in your restoration. It looked so good I thought it was part of the original when I looked at it first yesterday.

Beth you did an outstanding job on evening out the light and the dark areas. I love your first picture - noise and all - I think the noise gives it some character.

Unimatrix brought out detail that no one else did and if you were to continue that would be a really good restoration too.

I don't have much to add except that fiddling with the picture to try and find that ever elusive 'quick fix' I noticed that if I copied the background layer, equalised the copy and set the blend mode to Color it brought out detail (particularly in the background) that no other method did. I have no idea how this worked but it did, and, even though the result was quite pixelated, it was a good starting point.


And having said all of that, it seems, as others have suggested, that the best method of all would be to take another picture of the photograph using polarizing lights. The difference in Mike's example is quite remarkable.

Sincerely Syd

[Kraellin]

lol, beth. you tickle me a polarization filter is something you put on the end of a camera lens and it filters out glare and evens out light a bit. it's the same thing they use in the 'Transition' sunglasses, the ones that change from light to dark and back depending on the amount of light present. they have a direction to them so that when you turn them one way they filter light one way and when you turn them another way, they change the filtering again. thus, mike's double filtering is filtering from two ways blocking out the reflection from the silvering. quite simple, really... unless it's tuesday of the 2nd month of the year in a non-leap year year and you're not wearing blue

ok, somethng decent (mind you, not great) that i'm willing to post. this is based on splitting the image to cmyk and then re-combining it with the c, m, y and a 2nd c instead of the black. the black was really bad. i did this 3 times, each time replacing the black channel with the cyan channel.

after that, i sort of got lost. there was a clarify, some masking, some airbrushing, a bit of cloning and probably some other stuff, but the basis was the cmyk split/replace/combine.

[solitear]

Craig and Syd...... those are beautiful restorations!!!

Craig - thanks for 'splainin that to me ....you did a very good job because I actually understand it now and, seeing it in Mike's photo, really makes a believer out of me.....

Another fun one!

Beth

[Kraellin]

thanks, beth.

but dont put too much stock in my explanation. i always get polarization and ultra violet filtering mixed up. in fact, the 'Transition' lenses may actually be uv. so, that part may be wrong. but i do recall that the polarization filters turn, so i think that part is right Mike could probably explain it better. i think it's somewhat like blocking a certain band of light. we say in here, shadows/midtones/highlights, so it might be that the polarizing filter blocks the highlights when turned one way, or partially so, while turned another it would block another part of that band. so, if you align two filters blocking one part of one band and the other filter blocking the other part, you'd effectively block the band as a whole.... something like that. and it's probably not truly blocking that light; it's probably just redirecting it away from the eye when you turn the filter a certain direction, or in the case of a camera, turning it away from the camera.

so, now that i've shown my true ignorance on the subject, i'll shut up and let Mike tell you how it really works

[Mike]

Sorry Craig, polarization has nothing to do with color or "bands" of light The key is that light travels in waves, the wave oscillate in an infinite number of planes, the polarizing filter being made up of parallel bands of opaque and clear areas, lets only the light in the appropriate plane through it. The appropriate plane of course being determined by the orientation (turning) of the filter.

I did a little research into the Double Polarized light technique and could not find a site with a really good simple explanation of what I am referring to. However I did find that my "Bible" is still available here and there. So if you would really like to look into copying old photos, I would strongly recommend that you try to get a copy of "Copying and Duplicating in Black-and-White and Color". It was printed by Kodak and its "Kodak Publication M-1", Cat #152-7969.

The one I have was published in 1985 and so it is based on film cameras. However for most practical purposes one can just substitute a digital camera for the film one, the lighting techniques remain the same.

They devote several pages to using the technique and provide drawings to show you what the theory is etc. They cover all kinds of originals (Daguerreotypes, old and faded photos, paintings, etc) and have all kinds of directions on set up, lighting and on and on. Haven't really looked at that book in several years, and am reminded again of all the advantages of going digital!!!!

As for the cost, I found some on Amazon for $0.87, EBAY for $3.00, and from other folks for up to $33.00. I think that the book is long out of print so if you decide to try and get one I would do it quickly!

I did take a very quick look to see if there where any of the photographic training web sites that might apply but could not find anything. I will try to maybe do some drawing or scanning to see if I can come up with some simple explanations if there is any interest in this. I am one of those who teach by drawing on the blackboard! Guess that dates me pretty well

[Kraellin]

thanks mike.

well, i knew it blocked something