New Here..

Sportyone · #1 05-14-2008, 12:34 AM

Hi all. First post for me. Seems like a helpful lot here.
This photo is about 50 years old and would love to restore the color to as close to original as possible. Kinda baffled by the discoloration on the one side.
Help appreciated. I have Elements 6.0.

Gary Richardson · #2 05-14-2008, 02:46 AM

As I see it, there is no colour in this picture, it's a plain old B&W.

However I've had a quick go with evening the lighting across the picture. It's a bit crude but will give you somewhere to start from.

Selected the right hand faded section and copied to new layer. Applied levels to adjust brightness to match left side. By matching the sea tones, the sky was out.

Flattened image.

Selected right hand sky area, copied to new layer, adjusted levels to match left hand side.

Flattened image.

I like to work on a new layer rather than apply an adjustment layer, because I can adjust layer opacity for fine control.

New layer, cloned out the "joins" and any blemishes.

New colour layer and applied even sepia tone sampled from original.

Posted 2 versions, Sepia and B&W.

mistermonday · #3 05-14-2008, 09:03 AM

Gary, great job on the image.
Sportyone, welcome to RetouchPRO. I have to agree with Gary that the original image was B&W. However, you can colorize it as I have begun to do here. There are a zillion tutorials on the web if you just google "Colorize Black & White"
Regards, Murray

Kraellin · #4 05-14-2008, 10:55 PM

no, this was not a color photo to begin with. pure black and white. and your estimate of 50 years is fairly close, i'd guess and maybe just a touch more, like 60.

gary's done a nice job on the restoration and murray has started you on the road to colorization, so i'll just add, welcome to RetouchPRO

johern · #5 05-31-2008, 03:18 PM

I just started doing photo editing and decided to use GIMP instead of some of the other popular tools because it fit nicely into my budget. I probably do things the hard way, but I created a new layer for each individual color and used the layers as masks. That way, if I did not like a color, I could individually make changes to it (change opacity, hue, lightness, etc).

I am having a hard time finding a good book on photo restoration using GIMP and would love any recommendations. I am happiest when I am adding color to b&w images, removeing rips, bends, stains, etc., but I have discovered that I have a LOT to learn.

Jim

hawkeye60 · #6 05-31-2008, 03:37 PM

Very nicely done.

Kraellin · #7 05-31-2008, 09:13 PM

looks good, johern. and welcome to RetouchPRO.

you might take a look at "Gimpshop" as well as "the Gimp". gimpshop is the same thing as the gimp, essentially, but the interface is designed to be a look-alike to photoshop, thus, a lot of the photoshop tutorials and helps therefore also apply nicely to gimpshop.

johern · #8 05-31-2008, 09:56 PM

I will look into Gimpshop...thanks for the tip. Boy, after looking around the site, I have come into so many good pointers on how to retouch and restore photos that I feel I've significantly improved in just one evening. There was a tutorial video showing how to correct a 'blown-out' sky and although I could not exactly duplicate the method, I was able to reproduce the results and I am going to try to use a screen capture video to show how. I think I already owe this site something.

Jim

Kraellin · #9 05-31-2008, 10:25 PM

cool beans, johern

TommyO · #10 06-01-2008, 12:07 PM

Sportyone,
That was a good image to post and seemed to generate some good discussion. You should try and reproduce the effects in Elements. It should be capable of doing everything you see here.

And Jim,
That was a very nice colorization. Keeping things on separate layers is always a good way to go. That way you can make changes later.

Thanks for posting your result !