Removing Texture

[femmgrangwav]

Originally Posted by BillFrey

Thank you, LadySedim

I agree, I'm often impressed with the restoring/retouching being done here. I'm often surprised at how much can be salvaged from badly damaged photos.

Here's a small example of how I colorize... often changing colors to hopefully get a natural look.

Regards,
Bill

OMG!! This is soo much fun! Okay...You have to school me like a 5 yr. old. What steps did you use after fixing the cracks?

[BillFrey]

Hi femmgrangwav,

It is fun! I restored some family photos and I smile each time I look at them. They would have been lost forever otherwise. My father, 84, didn't remember most of them, so he was delighted to see them.

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I started with your version which was run through polaroid dust/scratch removal.

Patch any remaining damage. I think I only removed the spots in the background.

Ran it through a noise reduction program with light settings. A mask was added to hide important areas, eg: eyes, lips, nostrils and part of the hair. Do not over do noise reduction, if there are any distracting spots remaining, use a very small smudge or blur brush and hit those spots only.

Used highlight/shadow filter to reveal detail in the shirt. I used the highlight and midtone contrast sliders only.

I used a levels adjustment layer to darken the hot spots on the face. A mask was used to paint those areas that needed darkening.

An overlay layer was added and I painted low opacity black over the outline of the hair to darken it to match the rest of the hair.

The background had no texture at all, so I added a layer with noise so that I could paint color on it later.

After I felt the greyscale detail was good, I sharpened, using a mask to hide sharpening the skin, but allowing the sharpening in other areas like the eyes, hair, etc.

From there I colored using layers in color blend mode. When coloring I changed colors and opacities to avoid a flat look.

I think that's all

Bill

[femmgrangwav]

Keep in mind I am still wet behind the ears. I'm afraid to post my version but here's my take at adding color. I couldn't get the detailing as you did...
http://ss1.pickle.com/media/femmgran...51_big.jpg?773

I also couldn't figure how to minimize his eyebrows...i.e. "pluck" them so to speak.

[BillFrey]

Nice work, femmgrangwav

I think the owner of the photo will be very pleased. It's a dramatic improvement.

Bill