Badly Stained Photo

[Nan]

Here's another family photo that was shared with me by a relative. I can handle the pencil marks. Polaroid Dust and Scratch Remover gets rid of some and lightens the rest of them. I think cloning will handle what's left.
My problem is not knowing where to start with all the stains on their clothing. It's not only the red stains but their clothes have all kinds on them. His suit is a mess. Is there an easy way to fix these?
Working in Paint Shop Pro 8.
Nan
http://i120.photobucket.com/albums/o...GrandpaLee.jpg

[mistermonday]

Nan, there is not a large % of fine detailed / multicolored area in this photo. So one approach might be as follows:

Make a copy of the Red channel (which is in better shape than then G & B). Apply a Levels adjust to it to boost the contrast and normalize the tone.
Next on a duplicate of the background layer do Image > Apply Image and apply the adjusted Red Copy channel to the image in Normal blend mode. The image will look pretty clean with the exception of the pencil / pen lines. After cloning the lines away, the recoloring should be fairly quick.

Regards, Murray

[Daviskw]

Hi There

I wish I could give you better instructions but I had problems with the stains as well

The stain is not just color but also texture. I tried Adjustment layers to change color but gave up and concentrated on matching luminance not color. Then I painted on a blank layer with blend modes set to color.

Some cloning and healing brush and noise filtering.

Butch

[Cameraken]

Hi Nan

My picture was done way too quickly. You should get better results if you take your time with the pen scribble

This should help with the rest

http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/?m=show&id=255


Here are my settings

Levels step
Red 66 1.00 233
Green 48 1.00 217
Blue 40 1.00 191


Channel Mixer step (Same as Murray)

Use 100% Red

Marks and Blemishes step

Remove the scribble here
I used PS D&S (Quickly) This needs more time

Put the Colour Back step

After this
Add a blank layer set to colour and paint out the pink

As Butch has mentioned there is still a difference in luminosity in some areas

Add a blank layer set to overlay and paint black and white at low opacity to even this out

Finally I used Neat Image.

With a bit more care and time this should come out just fine.

Hope this helps

Ken.

[Kraellin]

hi nan,

i'd go with psp's scratch remover first. it does a very good job on marks in lines like this. follow that up with any little touch-ups necessary with a clone or smudge or airbrush tool.

the stain, i'd mask and then probably treat with a hue/sat layer. you might also be able to handle the stains with a blank adjustment layer set to color or soft light and simply paint over them. i normally use the airbrush tool for this.

after you've got all that done, run the whole through either a color balance layer or a color mixer layer to bring all the colors out more. or maybe even a hue/sat layer. it shld be very salvagable.

[Flora]

Hi Nan,

I had a (quick) go at your picture... (worked on the faces only)

I used:

• Hue/Saturation on the magenta discolorations.
  
  
• Patch Tool on the scribbles (strongly magnifying the image).
  
  
• Blank Layers set to Lighten, Darken, Color, Soft Light and Overlay to even out spots, colours and enhance the picture.
  
  
• Neat Image to minimize the noise.
  
  
• Levels to increase the contrast.

P.S. I work with Photoshop...

[Nan]

Well, all of you have been able to do a lot more with that magenta stain than I have. I must be doing the steps wrong or leaving something out.
When I try to paint over them in different blend modes, the colors come out horrible. How are you choosing the right color to paint or air brush with?
Hue/Saturation isn't working for me either. How exactly are you making the change there?
I had this almost done and used hue to target on the stain and did a lot of cloning but I had the skin much too smooth and decided to start over.
Nan

[bart_hickman]

The stain has both luminance and color components. Perusing the color channels, it appears the luminance error is in the green channel.

So create a channel mixer, check the "monochrome" box and set the RGB coefficients to 50, 0, 50. Then change the blend mode to "luminosity". See 2nd attachment. This leaves the image luminance mostly unaffected, but it makes the stains have matching luminance so at least you only have color errors to worry about now. You could fine tune the R and B numbers to get a nearly perfect match--50/50 was close enough.

For fixing colors, I always use the hue/saturation layer set to "colorize". Let's do his face first. Use the eyedropper to sample some good face color. Then create a H/S layer and check "colorize". This loads the foreground hue (the hue you just sampled) into the H/S layer hue (see 3rd attachment). Click ok. Then create a black mask to block out the H/S layer effect. Then paint over the stain on his face--you can be sloppy. The correction might not quite be perfect yet because we haven't tweaked saturation yet--that's next. Just keep painting until the original stain is covered.

The saturation probably doesn't quite match, so open the H/S layer again and adjust the saturation until the stain is gone. The 4th attatchment shows how it looks after doing is forehead.

Repeat this for the other areas--her dress, his coat, etc... The 5th attachment shows how it looks after doing her dress and his coat. I didn't bother with the lines (which is where the real work will be.)

Bart

[Flora]

Hi,

Nan,

I don't know how the different Tools are called in PSP so, here are some snapshots of the PS Tools I used on your image:

• Attachment 1 = Select>Color Range where I used the 'Add to sample' Colour Picker until I had selected most of the stain.. (Feathered the selection = 3 pxs).
  
  
• Attachment 2 = With the selection active I created a Hue/Saturation Adjustment layer where I tweaked Reds and Yellows (reselected the 'stain' by Ctrl+Click on this Layer's mask).
  
  
• Attachment 3 = With the selection active I created a Selective Colors Adjustment layer where I tweaked Reds, Yellows and Whites.
  
  
• Attachment 4 = Created a Blank Layer set to Color and, with a fuzzy Brush (Opacity 30-50%), sampling colour from surrounding areas, I painted over the remaining stained areas.
  
  
• Attachment 5 = My result after this procedure.

Adjust the Masks where necessary.

Hope this helps..

[Nan]

Thank you Bart and Flora. Your results are great. I appreciate you both taking the time to give the detailed steps you used. I'm trying to work some of it out in PSP.
Happy New Year,
Nan

[Flora]

Thanks for your feedback, Nan...

... and a very Happy New Year to you too!!!!

[bart_hickman]

Originally Posted by Nan

Thank you Bart and Flora. Your results are great. I appreciate you both taking the time to give the detailed steps you used. I'm trying to work some of it out in PSP.
Happy New Year,
Nan

You're welcome. I just noticed you said PSP--sorry about that. Luckily it has all the features I used in PS for my version. In cases where you are using a color blend layer, be sure to use "color legacy" blend mode.

I think PSPXI added some new color modes to one of the color replacing tools with the latest patch, but I'm not sure exactly of the details.

Bart

[Nan]

No problem Bart. I'm still working on this one. I've started over several times. All of the instructions given here were great. It's just me. I can't get it to a place where I'm satisfied with it. Frustrating but good for learning.
Thanks again,
Nan