Patch Tool

[Volvo]

Have a problemo trying to get full coverage with the patch tool whilst trying to do up an old photo that has been scanned..
There are some tears in the old photo and have been trying to get the patch tool to drag some of the shadowed area over the tear and will only do so VERY lightly..Will not completely cover the said area??..
Is there something i'm doing wrong or settings need re-set??..
Will try upload said Pic

[Volvo]

And for my next question ??, In what order or what are the golden rules for restoration??..
Think my biggest problem is going to be what to replace that doll with that has his/her head missing adjascent to the little fella to the left..
Being yours truly lol..
Cheers and thanking in advance..

[Lasa]

Hi Volvo,
I'm not sure the patch tool is the best tool for the job. I think the clone brush would work better to build the ripped area...
The clone (stamp) tool would be great for this..set the opacity to 60% or so and build the area up..I'd also use a medium brush to blend things in easier..
Just ideas,
Lasa

[dmrdm]

Patch, healing, clonning...you have to try all of them to figure out what's right for your situation. If you think you're going to be getting into a lot of restoriation, you might what to try a couple of Katrin Eismann books. She was a great one, Photoshop Restoration & Retouching. I actually bought an older version of it before I ever owned Photoshop. Has a lot of great information in it, for about every situation imagainable. I attempted the patch on the legs and they looked acceptable. You're going to have to clone the missing paper at the top (rock, hair, dress, dolls dress) about the dolls head....maybe you'll need to find one from another photo. Maybe someone else will have a better idea for the doll. Have fun!

[Kraellin]

hi volvo,

THE golden rule in pure restorations is, DO NO HARM! mind you, i said 'pure' restorations, because some choose to glamorize, enhance, artify and so on. but if you're doing a true restoration, you want to RESTORE to EXACTLY how the image looked when it was taken... or finished. and i put 'finished' in there because often older studios did treatments to a photo before giving it to the customer. this might amount to colorizing, sepia toning and so on. so, you want to bring it back to that condition or as close as possible.

other than that, the general workflow, for me, is 'find the picture' first. older images are often faded, ripped, stained, moldy and so on. so, i tend to do whatever possible to find the true picture as my first steps. this tends to amount to getting some better contrast, maybe fixing a rip first or something else, but if you cant 'find the picture', then restoring is obviously going to be much harder. so, find the picture and then fix it.

[bart_hickman]

The doll face is the only hard thing here--just find a photo of an old-style doll in a christening dress and borrow the parts you need (mainly the face.) I found this doll face on google images.

Bart

[Volvo]

okay gang here's the final result with thanks from alls input i ended up with something that may be keepable ..
Please comment on what you think of job so far..
Ended up finding a doll over the net, then had to age it a tad or should i say add some noise , back off on opacity and offcourse convert to greyscale...
Comments Please!!..

[Cupcake]

Looking very good.

[Kraellin]

very nice!

[dmrdm]

Hey great job! My eyes are drawn to the new head...but I don't know if that's just because I knew there wasn't one before or what. When I stare at her I'm not sure if I'm thinking something is wrong or not. Weird, I know. I'm not sure if her head is a little large or what. Although portortionatly, she looks fine. Maybe she looks a little flat, or her head is sitting back too far......Again, I think it is fine...if I never knew she didn't have a head before, I'm not sure I would even think anything about it. Will watch thread to see what others think. NICE JOB!

[zekeode]

I think the new doll is just a bit too bright. I used some burn tool to make it fit better to the overall picture. 3% exposure on highlight/midtones/shadows.

[Volvo]

Will give it a bit more of a going over and see how it looks..Doll was colour and modern looking doll before it was transformed to black n white , noise added etc to give it a bit of age ..And, the whole doll was pasted over the older doll maybe why it looks out of kilter a tad..
had to rotate to cover the other one..Anyhow its a blast from the past so will add it to my photo Album..

[dmrdm]

After looking at her on another day, think she is too sharp also and a little bright. Maybe a little darkening and a little blur. Fun, fun!