Howdy Strangers -- Any suggestions on this one?

chillin · #16 04-10-2007, 08:07 AM

Thank You Roger. That's really nice comment.

Cupcake · #17 04-10-2007, 01:25 PM

My try.
Hope you like it.

Kraellin · #18 04-10-2007, 08:55 PM

i did most of this the other day, so i'm afraid i dont recall all the steps. but, it was pretty much my standard fare, clone, airbrush, digital camera noise removal, push (smudge), a bit of soften here and there and a bit of sharpen here and there.

Mark Adams · #19 04-10-2007, 10:10 PM

Hey Craig,

The bottom of the dress looks grainy, but it's still better than the results I'm getting.

Thanks for contributing.

Mark

Kraellin · #20 04-10-2007, 10:18 PM

you're welcome.

Mark Adams · #21 04-10-2007, 10:27 PM

Hey Roger,

Yeah, I'm spending a lot of time with this one -- her name is Anna Netzel by the way, born in 1889 which would place this photo somewhere around the turn of the century.

Anyway, The last draft above was simply an attempt at doing something with the dress. I agree that it is dark and heavy handed. My version just above it (Neat Image-ized) is actually a little too soft in my opinion.

Over the past week or so, I've thrown everything but the kitchen sink at it. I've tweaked levels, curves, layers, contrast masks, pretty much everything I can do with the Gimp. To date, none of it has really satisfied me. The family was thrilled to get a copy with the scratches and junk removed. I'm trying to do better than that.

My good working copy of Ms. Netzel has the original layer intact as well as a repaired layer that I'm duplicating and working on. I have pretty much every element represented by a saved selection, so I feel like I can still do a lot with it.

I'm going to make it available on the web somewhere and see if I can't get folks in comp.graphic.apps.gimp to have a go at it. Surely there's a way to deal with the mess on the bottom of this thing.

Play on Roger.

roger_ele · #22 04-10-2007, 11:33 PM

Hey Mark,

I think maybe we should spell tenacity M-A-R-K ;-)

Working within the framework of Gimp, of which I know nothing about, maybe I have an idea ... and this might seem odd but ... just concentrating on the silvering on the dress, maybe I and others here (some who might know GImp) can help you brainstorm. If you talk through your assumptions and thought processes for working with this problem specifically, I bet you some ideas will come of it. With retouching, the thinking and visualization is the more important part of the process ...

Whatchathink?