Photo Restoration - - Removing Photo Wet-Development Problems

One4UAll · #1 05-13-2008, 09:57 PM

I processed this photo, myself, long ago. (Maybe big mistake) On the left margin there's a vertical shaft of lighter color/value, top to bottom. About one-third of the way in to the right is another vertical shaft that is the same. On the right margin is not only that, but some blackish aritfacts, as well.

I could crop the left & right sides, but I don't want to do that for the sake of composition. I've tried the healing brush to reduce contrast in the more central shaft, but that hasn't worked. I've also tried the clone tool, selecting the shaft, moving it to a close space, then copying that space to the shaft, but there's still noticeable contrast. I've just worked with the sky, as that seemed easiest.

I might try painting in that shaft space, using a reduced opacity feathered brush. But, problems arise when I get into the details of the clouds (central) and left & right shafts when they get down into the foreground.

Any ideas?

crazyfly1 · #2 05-13-2008, 10:38 PM

One4all, not to be disrespectful but why exactly are we revisiting this?
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/pho...landscape.html

One4UAll · #3 05-13-2008, 11:23 PM

Thank you for your question. I opened this thread in this forum because I'm now facing a problem that I felt was more a restoration problem than a retouching problem. This thread is more focused than the previous thread in the retouching forum. I hope you notice an improvement in this image over the image that I earlier posted. This image pleases me, if it were not for the problems that I need help on.

You didn't waste your time posting to my earlier thread. I learned a great deal from those posts, including yours. If you have any suggestions how to solve the problems I've posted in this thread, I'd appreciate knowing them.

chillin · #4 05-13-2008, 11:31 PM

Use targeted curves.

crazyfly1 · #5 05-13-2008, 11:47 PM

Fair enough.
Chillin's suggestion is a good one.
My thought is that your shafts are a luminance problem. I would take your image into LAB and make selections there one at a time on each of the 3 shafts and work on them with levels or curves in luminance only. There is a good tutorial on that somewhere that I saw just yesterday but I'll have to look for it and get back to you.

Found it.
http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/?m=show&id=304

lurch · #6 05-14-2008, 02:15 PM

When I was playing with this image, I got rid of the streaks using a combination of dodge and burn (low opacity black and white on a soft light 50% gray layer) and low opacity painting with selected colors on an additional blank color layer.

<C>

One4UAll · #7 05-14-2008, 03:09 PM

Lots of good ideas. Thanks, all. I'll get back to you.

One4UAll · #8 05-16-2008, 11:28 PM

I'm trying to work with chillin's idea, first. I'm having a problem getting the targeted curves to work. I want to send you a screenshot of my layers palette, but I can't do it, after several tries. How is that done?

I have a PowerMac with OS 10.3.9 running PSCS. Mac has a Grab app, but when it's open, PS's palettes close with only the image showing, which I don't want to "grab." How can I supply a screenshot of my layers palette to illustrate my problem better? I could go on, but I'll wait for your input.

crazyfly1 · #9 05-17-2008, 02:05 AM

one4all, I've not tried it but there is an option of posting a psd here. The 100k limit is a problem. I think you could shrink the image to a tiny size both in dimension and resolution to get it down to that. Your image would be worthless but the layers would remain.

Kraellin · #10 05-17-2008, 10:24 PM

on a pc, one uses the printscreen key on your keyboard. this takes a screenshot and posts it into the clipboard. the clipboard is simply an area in windows for storing temporary data. you then go back to your editor, photoshop or whatever, and retrieve the image from the clipboard, usually with a control-v. that shld then paste the image into photoshop or whatever.

Kraellin · #11 05-17-2008, 10:32 PM

ok, i just downloading your image. from what i can see, what you've got isnt light streaking, but actually selective fading in broad areas, which are leaving some of the original areas brighter. normally, i wouldnt bother to point this out, but it does make a difference here in how you handle it. the difference is, you dont treat the lighter areas. those are original and dont need any treatment. the darker, faded areas are what need treating.

i'd try some selections of the faded areas and then try a brightness/contrast adjustment layer on the selections and try to match the original. might try a curves too or even a levels. and if i remember how flora did this, when you make your selections, use a feathered edge to it so as to blend better into the unselected areas. you might also try making the selections not a pure opaque selection but rather a reduced opacity.

another method that might work would be a bit of dodge and burn on a 50% gray layer over the top of the rest of the image. just dodge the faded areas brighter.

there's probably some other ways that would work as well, but i'll leave you with that for now.

One4UAll · #12 05-30-2008, 11:41 PM

I think I've eliminated the streaks I complained about earlier. I really have a tough time working with layers. This 16-bit image with layers is now nearly 3GB in size, but my G5 Mac with 4GB RAM acts as if nothing is wrong, altho it takes about 20 seconds to save my work.

I'd appreciate your scrutinizing this image to see if I've removed the problems I had earlier. I did a series of layers made from selections on the background layer & worked on them. There is a problem: in the upper left sky there is a noticeable division between light & dark areas & for the life of me, using healing brush, clone tool, and copy & paste, I can't get rid of that division. This is a problem for me in other images: blending a light & dark area seamlessly, esp. in the sky. How do you guys do it?

With all due respect to Kraellin, I decided it is much easier to darken the streaks, rather than lighten the larger areas, because were it not for the streaks, the image would have been fine. Also, it's late afternoon & there are darker colors in the sky.

I have a tough time working with layers. A major problem is I have a layer & want to copy & paste one part of it to another part & nothing happens. Why is that? Sometimes I've moved the layer to the top of the stack & noticed the effect. There's a lot of other issues I have working with layers. It's so much easier to modify the background layer, esp. since I have a 16-bit image, but I know this is a no-no among PS professionals. I had to do some stuff on the background layer, because I wasn't getting what I needed with layers.

Would appreciate some comments on the above.

crazyfly1 · #13 05-30-2008, 11:59 PM

One4uall
I'm on my laptop so I'm not really seeing the sky issue your talking about.
You might try dropping in a colored blue gradient over the whole sky. You also might try unsharp mask at 20, 60, might add nice contrast to the whole thing.
On your copy paste issue, I never find an occasion to do that unless I'm pasting into and that's a whole other thing.
You probably know this and it will sound silly my suggesting it but...
when you have your selection made in a layer, hit control J
this will jump just your selection to it's own layer and you can move it and place it with the move tool and use blend modes and mask it as well.

Kraellin · #14 05-31-2008, 11:19 PM

Quote:

With all due respect to Kraellin, I decided it is much easier to darken the streaks, rather than lighten the larger areas,...

hehe, whatever works

for your blending light and dark areas, try something along these lines: add a blank layer above your image and pick a color between the two you're trying to blend. take your airbrush too and set it on a very low opacity, like 3 or so and set the density down to about 60. airbrush between light and dark, covering the edges of both areas. you shldnt need a lot. then, do a gaussian blur on that layer. this will smooth your airbrushing out and disperse it around more evenly. now, if your airbrushing still looks too heavy, take your eraser tool and set it to around 5 opacity and run it over your gaussian blurred layer. you can also try setting the gaussian layer to color blend mode and see if that's any better.

One4UAll · #15 06-01-2008, 09:15 PM

crazyfly1 & Kraellin,

One thing I'm learning from both of you is to think in terms of layers, and that's what I've been trying to do, altho not precisely as you have suggested. Without going into a lot of detail, I worked on a layer of just that area of sky I've been concerned about. I played around, trying various blend modes & adjusting opacities (a new concept for me). It so happened that when I tried the luminosity blend & reduced opacity, the division I was concerned about was reduced to my liking.

I don't think any of us want to go into the details of how that came about (I could provide my layers palette). Kraellin, I'm saving your advice for other images on this same roll of film. crazyfly1, thanks for the selection/layer tip, altho on a Mac it's Command+J.

David