Old Hand painted image

[sage150]

I haven't been on the site in quite awhile. With some of the knowledge I
have received as a member it has helped me to restore the photograph's
of many friends. I mostly enjoy colorizing using curves,using the clone
stamp for fixing crack's,etc. I also use the blur tool and sometimes the
filter's for sharpening.
A friend gave me this to work on. It's her Mom and I am having much
difficulty with it. The photo was hand painted years ago.
Can someone please advise me on what I can do to make this better?
So far I fixed up cracks, I put the photo in lab mode and painted it using
a soft brush and about 50% hardness.
Please advise.Thank You.

[crazyfly1]

Could you post the origional?

[sage150]

This is the original photo she sent me.many cracks and tears in photo.
Hand painted color washed out,etc. - Joseph

[Kraellin]

i havent done a thing with this one except in my head, so i'll give you that.

i'd be very tempted on this one to 'cheat'. and by cheat i mean take something from another image and clone it in over this one. in particular, the hair. it's unlikely you're going to bring out very much detail there and it needs it.

on the face and clothing, i think you can bring some of that out with various contrasting methods, curves, levels, clarify, shadows/midtones/highlights and that sort of filtration. then work with getting more detail with airbrush in color mode, perhaps.

but again, i've done this in my head while looking at the image and doing that doesnt always match up with how i end up doing things. so, i could be way off

[sage150]

'd be very tempted on this one to 'cheat'. and by cheat i mean take something from another image and clone it in over this one. in particular, the hair. it's unlikely you're going to bring out very much detail there and it needs it.

Thanks for this tip, Craig. I'm sure this could be an option I can go with.
Never thought of it.

[Kraellin]

you're welcome.

it's an option i dont like to use, but sometimes ya just gotta cheat

[crazyfly1]

Hi sage150, I'm not sure that I can give advice. I just kind of find my way. This is using no hand painting. It's just using curves to try to rcover origional color. than using color blend mode and point samples to try to take away extra cyan and magenta that has sprung up over the years. (or did the other colors fade and leave behind cyan and magenta? who knows)
I sharpened slightly and took away as much jpeg atifacting as I could. If you could get a scan saved as a tiff you could do more to bring out detail.
I used soley the patch tool to do the repairs.
I hope this was helpful. If you likewhat I did I can email it to you as it's 5 meg.

[sage150]

Thank You, crazyfly1, I appreciate what you have done. So far you
have accomplished more than I have.
I superimposed actress Susan Hayward's hair (had to give her a trim)
onto the photo to give it some texture. The problem is I seem to have
moved away from the woman's original image.
I will study the photo you retouched. ~ Joseph

[chillin]

I used curves adjustments, cleaned up the picture, enhanced the colors,
matched the colors with different colorized picture, added some noise to eliminate jpeg's artifacts, used noiseware to smooth the extra noise & added some background.

[sage150]

Chillin, this is simply amazing. This is a talent I can't even come close to.
As I stated in the thread, I can colorize using curves, touchup cracks,
by using the healing tool and the clone stamp tool. I use some other
adjustments also. But when it comes to enhancing a detail and other
task's, I fall down. This is art and I can't come close.
I humbly Thank You and can't Thank you enough.

[chillin]

Thank you sage150

[sage150]

Thank You very much, Candy. I will forward your rendition of her Mom's picture right away.

She emailed me and told me that she was going to place the other three

renditions on a dish. THANKS AGAIN!

[Nan]

I liked working on this one too. Used several adjustment layers, air brushing, color corrections, smudging and cloning.
Very pretty lady.
Nan

[sage150]

Thank you Nan,

This is another beautiful rendition of my friend's Mom.

You also kept her true image in the photo.

Truly amazing.

[Nan]

You're welcome. I'm still not sure if her hair was truly red or a sandy brown.

[sage150]

I'm not sure either,Nan but my friend Josephine wrote that she loved it.
The difficulty I had was trying to restore a photo that was hand painted in
the old days, probably in the '30's. Her Mom was a young woman at that
time.She is close to 90 years now.
She is having a dish made with all the various images of the picture,
including your rendition.
She wrote me to state, that you are all so talented and blessed with a
special gift.I feel the same way about each of you.

Joseph