HELP!!! Massive silvering problem on client photo.

[etrnluv]

I have tried the tutorial for silvering and could not tell the difference. Any ideas?? I uploaded what I have done but not totally thrilled with it. On the original photo you can sort of see the background with curtains on both sides and a sky scene in the middle. I found some comparable pictures for the background and carpet...just not sure about the contrast. Any ideas would be appreciated!
Thanks

Original scan

My restoration so far

[DCobb]

First, if the original was my picture I would personally be thrilled to get your restoration. I don't know if your final copy was supposed to have a yellow cast on the white dresses. I used a Hue/Sat and selected yellow and reduced the saturation on the yellow and it took it out.

dc

[Mike]

I think it is way too contrasty and you have lost quite a bit of detail in both the shadows and highlights.

I assume that you have scanned and tried to fix this in PS, that is not the best way to fix this type of problem at all. Try to get a copy made under double polorised light.

Mike

[CJ Swartz]

etrnluv, I agree that you've done a good job with the original (you have found detail not visible due to the silvering). To do the best job possible, it's always best to start with the best original possible, as Mike stresses.

There are past threads that discuss similar problems and one of our members, roger_ele, explains a bit about the copying strategy here in one of the threads --

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/103078-post8.html

"....The pro way to do this is with a copy stand and polarized lights and a polarizing filter on the camera. The easiest way to do this at home is to set a few books on a table and prop the photo in front of it. Set the camera down on the table (on a book if you need it higher), focus and slowly click the camera - the table will act as your tipod and keep the camera steady. Try different lighting, best bet is room lights off with window light coming from the side - window far enough away for the light to be even - no light source behind the camera at all so that you don't get reflections off the silvering."

[etrnluv]

Thank you DCobb for the compliment...I agree the dresses were too yellow. I am going to try and get a photo of the photo and see if that works...good thing I am also a photographer huh? :o) I will let you all know how that turns out. I know that the left side on the original photo has lost most detail in the bottom part of his legs...but it still may allow for more detail in some of the other parts. Thank you all for your help!
Angie

[Kraellin]

i studied both your before and after and i'd say you did a very nice job of removing the silvering. the biggest problem i have is that you also seem to have darkened the original, which was already too dark and/or underexposed. and that may be the problem with the 'loss of detail'.

part of the image has already lost detail before doing anything to it. the silvering and the dark image itself seems to have wiped some detail out. so, i'm not sure you're going to get all the detail back regardless of handling this photographically or digitally in photoshop.

what i would suggest is brightening the image up a bit, your after image.

[etrnluv]

How does this one look? Thanks for all the help...I had to add "pants" from another pic to the guys on the ends. I lightened the contrast, and got rid of the yellow in the dresses. I am thinking that may be as good as it gets.
Thanks
Angie

[Mike]

Here is an example of the differance between using a scanner and using a camera with double polorized light. There has been no PS work done to either image other than resizing.

[Kraellin]

mike,

that's excellent. exactly what do you do to get 'double polarized light'? i know what a polarizing filter is, but what's the doubling?

[etrnluv]

I am not getting enough for this to go through that much work and time. :o) Thank you though...I will remember that for next time...and I will try to ask for more money! LOL

[etrnluv]

Originally Posted by Mike

Here is an example of the differance between using a scanner and using a camera with double polorized light. There has been no PS work done to either image other than resizing.

I am also not sure how the double polorized light works either...

[Mike]

Casting light on the mystery Could not resist.....

To do double polarized light one has to have a SLR type camera equipped with a polarizing filter over the lens.

Then over your light source you need another polarizing filter, which of course must be very big to cover it, they are available in sheet form from theatre supply stores. If you use two light sources (recommended) then the filters over them have to be in the same plane.

When looking through the camera, turn the camera's filter and watch the reflection come and go, stop turning when it disappears and take the photo!

The very simple explanation is that the polarized light source will produce reflections in one plane and the filter over the lens will block all light in that plane.

Hope that clears that up............

[solitear]

Just another version..... I know..... the noise..... but it looked better than too slick....

Beth

[Kraellin]

mike,

thank you. that's fascinating. i'd forgotten that polarizing lenses/filters rotated. makes perfect sense now. very clever!

[Kraellin]

beth,

very nice. what did you use?

[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

[Aarius]

Thanks for the info. When I get my computer repaired I'm going to try these techniques
on some of my oldies.
Good job explaining and the web shots really helped me understand better