Where do I start?

[AtlanaAnna]

These are my thoughts but I'm just learning and would like to hear from some people that really know what they're doing.

1. Crop the edges.
2. Fix the background. The background has some serious problems. There's some sort of yellow that is smeared around the edges of the image. I've thought about maybe putting the image on another layer and then fixing the background that way. However, I'm not certain how to put the image on it's own layer.
3. From there, move to the face. The face has serious problems. For some reason it's 2 different colors so I'm not sure how to make this skin correction and maintain a natural looking skin tone.
4. The hair!!! It has some serious problems. It appears it has some unnatural reds and oranges that were added to the picture and in some places, it has this yellowish mess that's on the background.
5. Finish off with Neat Image to smooth out the noise of the paper.

Thank you,
Sylvia

[Daviskw]

Hi Sylvia

I used a hue/saturation adjustment layer to remove the yellow caste.

Then I used blank layers and the clone healing brush tools. In the option menu check "Sample All Layers"

I added some color back in the hair...eyes and skin using layers set to color or soft light mode.

Then I used a noise filter and then sharpened.

Butch

[AtlanaAnna]

I really like the way you got the yellow out of the background and out of the blouse. How did you manipulate the hue/saturation layer to remove the yellow? However, I'm a little lost when you started talking about using a blank layer and sampling all layers.

[Daviskw]

Hi Sylvia

I wish I had time to post an example or two... but

When I opened the Hue/saturation adjustment layer I clicked on the EDIT drop down box and chose Yellows

Then if you notice at the bottom right there are three eyedroppers. I clicked on the middle one this allows you to sample more than one shade of yellow in the drawing.

Then with the eyedropper I clicked on a few different shades of the yellow staining.

If you look at the color bars along the bottom it will show the range of yellows selected... If you wanted you could drag the sliders in the bar itself.

I then moved the saturation slider to the left watching the picture... If you want to experiment you could slowly move the hue slider and it will remap the selected yellows to a different hue... That would be reflected in the top color bar at the bottom of the screen... You could also change the brightness of the selected yellows.

If you open a blank layer above your background...Layer>New>Layer you can then use the clone and heal tools without changing the background layer. BUT to use the clone and heal brush on a blank layer you must look in the option bar for the particular tool.. it is just above the editor screen... you will see an option called "Sample" in the drop down box change it to "All Layers"... this is the case with Photoshop anyway..

Good luck Butch

[Kraellin]

hi sylvia, good to see you again

i worked on this also. i did a bit of masking to some areas to even out the hues and reduce the yellow stain. on each of these i used a hue/sat to adjust the color.

i cleaned things up with clone, airbrush and push (smudge).

i did a color balance also.

cropped the image to eliminate the border unevenness and a bit of clutter along the bottom.

ran the whole thing in filter forge using a filter by CF&M... one of his frame filters i modified to use with imported images.

[chillin]

I would start with finding the color definition & then the rest.
I did some selective enhancement of colors.

[crazyfly1]

Hi, here's my offering. I have photoshop set to save 60 actions but when I looked back over halph of what I did was gone. Would be neat if photoshop made the ability to export them as a text file. Anyway, I started with a levels corection, then took out the big crayon M with alienskin spot lifter. I adjusted te color on the face with a progress of several selections; make a selection, hue and saturation, go to yellow in the drop menue, use the eye dropper in hue and saturation to select the yellowing on the face in the selection and then drop the saturation and lighten a bit. Helps while I do this to squint a bit so I can see the tones. (Sorry if to much info). Same prosess whith the shirt, once for the yellowing then for the blue tints. Did some brushing in color and hue here and there on the face and shirt. Still not real happy with the lips but I'm going to blame that on the image size .

[AtlanaAnna]

Chillin and CrazyFly1,

Wow! You managed to maintain a natural looking face and add some nice color to the lips. Thanks for sharing your technique CrazyFly1. Chillin', how did you deal with the 2 toned skin?!!!

Thanks,
Sylvia

[AtlanaAnna]

CrazyFly1,

Good idea about Photoshop history being saved to text file. Sounds like a good suggestion they should hear about for a future version. I've never heard of alienskin spot lifter. When you were making your selections on the face, did you select the top half and adjust just that part? You accomplished a natural looking face and the lips look nice.

Sylvia

[crazyfly1]

Thank you Sylvia, I appreciate your compliments. Makes me feel good, sometimes it's difficult to know when to stop and I often think I've gone to far with an image.
To correct the two tones in the face I selected the top tone (on the forhead) with the lasso tool and then used hue and saturation to make the correction, It's a great tool, once you've made your selection pick a channel in H/S, it does'nt matter which one. This will allow you to use the eyedropper that comes inside H/S. Now go inside your selectoin and pick the yellowed portion that you want to correct, you can tighten up this selection so it's closer to the color you want to desaturate by using th outer sliders at the bottom of H/S. Now just eye it as you move the sliders, start with color and drop some of the yellow out and then lighten it a bit. I actually had to do it three times so I wouldn't drop out too much color as the stain was not perfect (darned spot) the stain was a gradiant so I would fix it then deselect and make another selection that was smaller than the first, fix it again with H/S and then reapeated a third time. I used the same method to remove both the yellow and the blue cast from the blouse.
I don't use to many plug-ins but I'm impressed with alian skin's stuff.
Hope that helped.

[philbach]

well I mainly worked on the color of the skin and wondered some about the color of her blouse which I thought may be white or perhaps a slight yellow color. Notice that in the yellow channel (after converting to cymk) was the most distorted. Later I used healing and clone tools around the lips and finally cropped the picture.

[Swampy]

Originally Posted by crazyfly1

Hi, here's my offering. I have photoshop set to save 60 actions but when I looked back over halph of what I did was gone. Would be neat if photoshop made the ability to export them as a text file.

Photoshop CS does have the ability to save a text log. Can't remember if it was introduced in CS2 or CS3.

You'll find it under the General Preferences

[crazyfly1]

Swampy, thank you! That's soo cool. You raise a question though...what's metadata? BTW it was CS2 cuz that's what I'm on and I got it.

[Swampy]

Meta data is a something that allows you to embed information into a file. It's usually associated with digital photos and allows you to add copyright information, URL, and a lot of other stuff to the information header in a file. Most digital cameras now include meta data such as the brand of camera, ISO settings etc.

Open a digital photo in Photoshop then look at File->Get info. You will see a list of metadata that is currently in the file (Camera Information) and if you click through the lists you can add your own information.

[Kraellin]

hmmm, seems i'm invisible these days. hello? sylvia? no comments? hello? is this mike on?