Photo Restoration - - Early Stage Color Correction

AtlanaAnna · #1 02-05-2007, 12:13 AM

Here is the original of a picture, a cleaned up version and a version with a start towards color correction. I used Levels > Auto to get this results. I don't know what to do next. I've played around with all the tools but none seem to be taking me in the right direction. Thanks for your help.

Sylvia

AtlanaAnna · #2 02-05-2007, 02:42 PM

Okay. Slight improvement using Cloning to get some of the green off the TV screen and Auto Contrast.

Gary Richardson · #3 02-05-2007, 05:58 PM

In cases like this, I usually do a little hand colouring to even out some of the "blotchiness", in this case just the walls and TV.

The woman's skin looked a touch blue to me, so added a little yellow.

Peter S · #4 02-05-2007, 06:06 PM

JUst looks at the colour cast.
You could try this:-
Use the eye dropper to select the orange cast on the wall is a good place.
Create a blank layer and fill with foreground colour (the one you selected)
Invert this layer (Image\Adjustments\Invert)
Change blending mode to colour
Reduce opacity of this layer to suit your tastes.

This is only a start there is lots more to do on this but you have made a good start.

Peter

AtlanaAnna · #5 02-05-2007, 11:37 PM

Gary, what you've done is very nice. You've smoothed out the background into mainly one color. Did you do this by painting it on?

Peter,

I tried your technique with 2 different versions to see what it would produce. One is with the unadjusted Orange cast. The other is with the levels and contrast adjustments. One produced colors that were similar to what Gary brought out in the picture with the blueish wall and yellow baseboard. It did take away some of the splotchiness and florescent colors of the picture but it also made the picture look like it had a film over the image. Here are the results.

Thank you,
Sylvia

PS I'm having trouble uploading these small .jpg images so they may not post with this post.

Kraellin · #6 02-05-2007, 11:49 PM

hi sylvia,

brightness/contrast adj layer
channel mixer
clone and airbrush
color balance adj layer
clarify
usm
fade correction
jpeg artifact remover
digital camera noise removal

that's not the exact order but most was done before the cloning and airbrushing.

the airbrushing was mostly done on individual blank layers and then gausian blurred, followed by erasing around the edges.

i dont use 'fade correction' very often, but it worked wonders on this one.

CJ Swartz · #7 02-06-2007, 01:13 AM

Sylvia,

Craig's use of noise removal got me to trying it to solve the jpg artifacting and whatever else is wrong with the background area of this photo (I wonder if they ever did faux paint finishes way back then or flocked wallpaper...). If you select "Jo" (and the paintings on the wall ) and use noise removal (or blur/median etc.) on the wall/background, it's probably a quick way to deal with it rather than painting over the wall etc. The noise removal or blurring doesn't remove the color, but using the selection of the lady to protect her skin color/dress color (which look pretty good), you can use a Hue/Sat adjustment layer to decrease the saturation of Yellows/Reds/Cyans/Magentas and leave the background sort of grayish paint -- then you can paint over areas if you want. The removal of those colors didn't really affect the furniture much.

I've attached a mask (just did a quick mask over her -- there's not much contrast between her and background to make a channel mask (that's for next week, anyway -

) and the end result starting from your image after you did the Levels adjustment.

Kraellin · #8 02-06-2007, 12:55 PM

well, if i were doing this again, i'd work from the original. i took sylvia's middle picture and worked with that on mine. but i noticed today that there is a second wall in the original, a corner. so, it looks like we all worked with the middle picture

yes, cj, i thought about masking the woman too. certainly makes some things easier. i often mask off the major portions/objects in an image like this and work on them separately.

and sylvia, your original cleanup needs some work yet, before the color balancing. the table legs arent done. the baseboard needs work and you removed the corner in the room. you've got a good start, for the most part; it just needs to be finished.

AtlanaAnna · #9 02-06-2007, 10:34 PM

Thank you, Craig. I got sort of creative with the clean-up. I couldn't figure out what was going on with the floor or the TV table. I decided to just clone the rug to cover the area under the TV table. Then the TV table had intense shadows. .......... so much so that the shadow looked like an additional table. And I had to get oriented with which table leg belonged to which corner. I also thought it was interesting that the TV table became completely black after the Auto>Levels and Auto>Contrast.

C.J. you did an amazing job with her dress. It looks realistic and like it must have looked on the day it was worn. So you did a mask over the woman. Did you work with the woman and the wall separately as Craig mentioned. After you created the mask, what did you do to get this results.

Also, I've noticed a term coming up that I haven't heard before........artifacting. Could that possibly be the florescent look or the multi-colored red, green, blue, and yellow tones in the wall?

Kraellin · #10 02-07-2007, 12:47 AM

hi sylvia,

i took a look at the original pretty closely and have marked some areas with color.

i think you're right about the area under the tv table (black). it's not a shadow and it's not part of the table, as far as i can tell. so, i'd say you were right in treating it as not part of the original.

if you look real closely at the table leg, front, left, you can see where the real leg is. and, i do believe the other part (red) is shadow. it's consistent with the other shadowing in the picture.

the part in blue, at first look, didnt look like shadow to me. there was damage on the table front that looked exactly like the part under the front edge of the table. but, on looking at it again, i'd say it probably is shadow, or at least most of it.

the green circled areas on her dress seem to be not of the dress. i believe these area result of compression/scanning/or some other process that does 8x8 pixel blocks. those areas circled look like some sort of averaging result that came out somewhat poorly. (you wont see the blocks on my image due to resizing, but you can see them in the original).

the cyan circling shows a necklace. easy to miss at first glance.

and the yellow in the corner is 'something', but i've no idea what and i'd probably just remove it.

AtlanaAnna · #11 02-07-2007, 07:39 AM

I have just seen the corner in this room. I never saw it before. And the areas on the dress that you circled in green I think that's part of the dress design. It looks like lace or something maybe woven around the dress parallel to the hem line. Thank you, Craig!

Gary Richardson · #12 02-07-2007, 10:00 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Sylvia

Gary, what you've done is very nice. You've smoothed out the background into mainly one color. Did you do this by painting it on?

Yup, that's all. Did it on a couple of colour mode layers, then adjusted layer opacity to allow a little of the "original" colour variations through (though not much as you can see).

AtlanaAnna · #13 02-07-2007, 10:48 PM

Gary,

I tried painting on a smoother background and it didn't work for me at all. Several times I used the eyedropper to choose a color from the picture to use as the paint color and set the opacity and brush flow very low but the multicolored background was overpowering. But when I raised the opacity adn brush flow, the painted on color was too uniform and unnatural looking. It seems this works best if you know how to pick the right color to paint with. I tried many different colors from inside the picture and from the color picker but it didn't work for me. I thought I could try to mask out everything but the wall and then do a Fill> Color and perhaps that would give a smoother appearance. I could easier ajust the opacity that way. That would be a lot of work making those selections so that they are all chosen to be maksed out except the wall.

Sylvia

Gary Richardson · #14 02-08-2007, 02:52 AM

Paint at 100% flow and opacity to ensure you get even coverage across the wall, then reduce the layer opacity, until some of the colour variation just shows through. Layer should be set to Color blend mode.

Kraellin · #15 02-08-2007, 03:14 PM

you're welcome, sylvia.

one way to paint on backgrounds like this is, make a new layer above your others. pick 'airbrush' or spraypaint or whatever they call in PS, and pick a color from the original wall. set your brush to a very low opacity. set the 'density' to medium or medium low. you really want a spray paint look and not a full paintBRUSH look. go over the area till you see some change and just gradually get it better. never just hold the brush in one position; move it around. once you get a light layer, go to your blurring filter and pick gausian blur. set this around 8 or so. it will vary a bit but 8 tends to be where i do most. go ahead and blur the layer. this is just your painted layer and nothing else. this will even out and somewhat diffuse the paint. then take your eraser brush and erase where the diffusion has moved paint outside the desired area.

if needed, just do this again on a new layer and build things up gradually. and, if doing it again, try a very slightly different color this time, often just a touch lighter or darker. do the same blurring and erasing on this layer also. and sometimes, changing the blend mode of these painted layers can make things look better as well. again, it just depends.

that's what i did when i worked this image. i ended up with about three different painted layers, all blurred and then erased around the edges. sometimes, if the paint is heavier than i want, i'll set the eraser at about 3% opacitly and lightly erase that as well.

all in all, it's a good way to paint backgrounds.