Sticky Tape Damage

[HILDA WOOD]

Heres one I have been asked to restore. Clearly the main problem is Mandy's head. Any suggestions welcome please.

[JD Spears]

I have one. Charge a butt load of money! That's going to be tough.

[DCobb]

Hi Hilda,

I took a try at just a few areas on the photo. Indeed it would be time consuming to restore. I personally would be challenged as I am not an artist and some areas might need to be reconstructed.

The little work that I did consisted of the healing brush, clone tool and a little painting on a blank layer. I do use a Wacom graphics tablet and pen which I think makes doing the detail work a little quicker and easier--however, not all would agree with this statement.

There is a book called Digital Restoration From Start to Finist from Focal Press by a gentleman call Ctein (Pronounced Kuh-TINE).
Good luck!

dc

[smathis]

You are going to have to recreate a fairly large portion it looks like with no/little detail to base it off of. Personally I would not take on a project like this, because no matter what your results will be limited to what you can paint in manually.

[ktg222]

Hilda,
Does your client have any other pictures of the woman you could use?
k

[Cameraken]

Hi Hilda

My first step was Polaroid Dust and Scratches. This removes a lot of the marks.
Then a bit of painting and cloning.
An artist could do more but this took less than 20 mins.

Regards

Ken.

[unimatrix001]

one thing you might try is scan the picture 180 from the scan you posted. then put the two pictures on separate layers set top layer to darken that might get rid of a lot of the tape markes around the womans head

[Kraellin]

my question is, are the tape marks additive or subtractive? if additive (something left from a piece of tape ADDING to the image) i'd be very tempted to try a physical restore rather than a digital. if subtractive (meaning something's been taken away when the tape was removed.) then digital it is.

[roger_ele]

Paint or clone on a separate layer above ... set the layer to darken mode, mask, tweak, merge down and do it again - always keeping the original background layer untouched.

The trick is to rough in what you can see without changing the integrity of what little image information is there to start with - this is the easier part - the hard part is in the details. One way to smooth the tones after it is roughed in (in smooth skin areas) is to use the smudge tool, run the strokes along the shapes so as not to change the position of the highlights and shadows, for instance - back and forth tracing the shape of the jaw. Use a lower opacity small brush and work gradually. You can even create hair and almost 'paint' in detail using this technique. When you are done with the retouch add a little noise to tie it all together.

I moved the couch over by selecting the couch with the lasso, control-j to float selection to a new layer, mask and merge down, the again and again - the healing and cloning ...

Good luck - this is a tough one!
Roger

[HILDA WOOD]

After cloning and healing the baby's face, giving Mandy back her missing arm and other basic corrections (all a bit hurried ) I took another photo of her - 16 years older mind - and then found a photo of me with similar hair and brought it all together. It felt as if I was cheating and I wanted to make sure this method wasnt frowned upon by the purists, or indeed if I was missing something more obvious to you professionals. I only do it for fun, but this one was stretching it a bit.
Thank you everyone for your feedback.
Hilda

[roger_ele]

Originally Posted by HILDA WOOD

It felt as if I was cheating and I wanted to make sure this method wasnt frowned upon by the purists, or indeed if I was missing something more obvious to you professionals.

I don't think it matters where the pieces come from, whether it is a creation of an artist, other photos, or pieces of the original. My standard is if I turn on and off the art work layer showing and hiding the original underneath it should look like the same photo with and without the damage. That is for paid jobs where the customer expects a restoration. Whether or not that is your need depends on your goals.

These are problems I saw, but depending on your goals, they may not be worth fixing;
-grain in background too sharp for rest of photo
-parts blurry
-hand on lap is lighter, makes it look even bigger
-woman was softly kissing the baby, now she is smiling

I have a hard time with losing the background and the two people who are partly in the photo - you lose the environment and the story and the moment becomes less candid, it is not cleaner or prettier, it just becomes a restoration that has had obvious art work done on it ... this is all just my two cents ...

Good job on what you did!
Roger

[HILDA WOOD]

You are right Roger. The hair is very blurry, and she isn't kissing the baby anymore. Why didn't I spot that? More attention to detail needed on my part. Thanks for your input.
In answer to Kraellin, the sticky tape damage was subtractive.

[Kraellin]

ok, thanks, hilda.

and, regarding the purists and professionals, i think they'd have been more upset if you hadnt done what you did. the original woman's face was pretty bad off and a simple restoration just wasnt going to do it very well. so, reconstruction is exactly what you attempt on those and that can often mean ghoulishly borrowing body parts from other sources

[Kraellin]

i've been working on this one for a while. since i had no access to photograph the subject myself, i borrowed hilda's i was already working on this when you posted that picture, hilda, and since it was nearly impossible to fix the original, i simply borrowed just the head out of yours. i removed some of the lines on her face, since you said this was 16 years later. the rest of the work was mine.

it's always a bit of a trick to fix a missing/damaged background. a lot of times you can simply replace it if it's badly damaged or missing, but sometimes it's kinda fun to try to reconstruct it. i've no real idea how close i might have come to the original... probably not very, but, it certainly looks better than tape damage

[HILDA WOOD]

Kraellin,
This is fantastic. How did you do it please?
Hilda

[Kraellin]

hilda,

thank you

on this one, aside from cutting and pasting in the head you provided, this is all clone, push (smudge), and airbrush. i didnt even use any clarify, contrasting or other filter. it was all tools. the background painting was mostly clone painting (simply cloning used like a paint brush). and removing the unwanted white was also mostly clone. removing the lines on her face to make her look younger was mostly push with a touch of airbrush here and there.

those three tools are what i mostly use in restoration. i'm old school and do a LOT of my work by hand rather than filter. i'm not adverse to using a filter when it will save time and NOT sacrifice quality, but i stay away from heavy Neat Image and things like that, since they tend to smudge/smear/blur an image when over-used. i also prefer black and whites. they tend to be easier

the hard part of the way i do it is time. your image took quite a while (read hours over several days).

and forgive that i dont seem to give a more detailed explanation, but it really was just cloning, push, and airbrush, done on many different layers. the dark background was simply cloning from the left side over to the right. and the rest was just enhancing and cleaning up what was there with push and airbrush.

[sergio2263]

Originally Posted by HILDA WOOD

After cloning and healing the baby's face, giving Mandy back her missing arm and other basic corrections (all a bit hurried ) I took another photo of her - 16 years older mind - and then found a photo of me with similar hair and brought it all together. It felt as if I was cheating and I wanted to make sure this method wasnt frowned upon by the purists, or indeed if I was missing something more obvious to you professionals. I only do it for fun, but this one was stretching it a bit.
Thank you everyone for your feedback.
Hilda

Hi Hilda,

I am still a novice with photo restoration but I can tell you, you've done a very good job, don't feel you've cheated as far as I know Katrin Eismann mentioned in her third edition book with severe restoration such as your photo is to steal, beg and borrow and if you have another photo of the same person is to use it. I found it better if you can use another photo of the same person rather than cloning, smudging and painting which i personally don't think give better results unless you what you are doing.

thanks

regards


helen

[sergio2263]

Originally Posted by HILDA WOOD

You are right Roger. The hair is very blurry, and she isn't kissing the baby anymore. Why didn't I spot that? More attention to detail needed on my part. Thanks for your input.
In answer to Kraellin, the sticky tape damage was subtractive.

Hilda

You should be able to cut and paste the original kissing mouth back onto the new restored version, if the photo are the same sizes, you shan't have any problem.

regards


helen