out of my depth!

[FayMargaret]

Hi, what wonderful help you all are in here. I have just joined after scanning here for some time to get some ideas................. now I am really in need of some advice and help!!

I have attempted to add the colour back into a family photo and as a beginner, I have not been very successful! Some step-by-step on getting this fixed would be fantastic.

I only have PS Elements 5.0...... and am really just learning through experimentation on my own!

Appreciate any assistance that I can get.

Cheers Fay

[Swampy]

Hi, Fay! Welcome to RetouchPro! Explore and Enjoy!

Your sample image is quite small, but it appears to have a lot of paper texture picked up in the scan. Did you turn on "Descreen" in your scanning software when you scanned it?

[smarsel]

Hi Everyone,

I have a restoration problem. A friend came to me with an WWII vintage B&W image needing restoration that is far beyond my skill set. I'm wondering if anyone is willing to take a swing at it. It's a Christmas gift so there's not much time. Hope someone can help! e-mail me for hi-res.

Thanks!

Steve Marsel

www.stevemarselstudio.com
steve@stevemarselstudio.com

[hawkeye60]

I ran out of time, and have to go out. But it is possible to improve it vastly. A lot of careful cloning, cutting and pasting, and painting. All on separate layers of course. You might even try bringing in elements of other photos if you have them.

[0lBaldy]

Originally Posted by FayMargaret

Hi, what wonderful help you all are in here. I have just joined after scanning here for some time to get some ideas................. now I am really in need of some advice and help!!

I have attempted to add the colour back into a family photo and as a beginner, I have not been very successful! Some step-by-step on getting this fixed would be fantastic.

I only have PS Elements 5.0...... and am really just learning through experimentation on my own!

Appreciate any assistance that I can get.

Cheers Fay

Fay, ** Welcome to RetouchPRO!**

Your samples seem very small!

The following links may help!

Attaching Files or Images to Threads or Posts

Size and quality for Attached Images!

After you post your less than 100K version here, you could also post a link to the site that is hosting a larger version Use one of your own or any of these other host options:
ImageVenue.com (3Meg max, free) or pixentral.com (2Meg max, free) or photobucket.com (1 Meg max free,... 5 Meg PRO) or Flickr.com (Reduces large pics to 1024 Pxls long side, Free).

[FayMargaret]

Okay, I thought the photo may be resized too small. I will go back and look at all of the helpful advice and then if I am still struggling....... I will come back and try again.

Swampy - the original scan, which is very faded, didn't have the texture at all, this has only happened in my attempt to recolour and I didn't add texture to it at all!!

Cheers Fay

[smarsel]

Originally Posted by hawkeye60

I ran out of time, and have to go out. But it is possible to improve it vastly. A lot of careful cloning, cutting and pasting, and painting. All on separate layers of course. You might even try bringing in elements of other photos if you have them.

Hi Hawkeye,

Very impressive, you got much further than I did! There's nothing to say that I couldn't crop it at the edge of the table as well! The arm however is problematic.....

Thanks!

Steve

[hawkeye60]

Originally Posted by smarsel

Hi Hawkeye,

Very impressive, you got much further than I did! There's nothing to say that I couldn't crop it at the edge of the table as well! The arm however is problematic.....

Thanks!

Steve

Like I said you could look for another photo to clone off of, or even take a new photo of a woman's arm in roughly the same position and use it for the repair.

[FayMargaret]

Hi again,

I have gone back to the initial scanned pic to see if I can get some help as to where it all went wrong with the colouring!!

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/mem...ur-family1.jpg

Cheers Fay

[TommyO]

Fay,
You may be able to save the colorization layers and apply them to a new background layer. The latest image you provided just does not look right, and I wonder what may have happened during the scanning. It is possible you scanned in black & white and then converted to RGB ? A scan in color would yield more recoverable detail and possibly eliminate the pattern.

[TommyO]

Steve,
It would be better if you started a new thread. You won't get much support buried within this one, and it is confusing.

[FayMargaret]

Okay, I have scanned again and this is what I have now. Ready to start again!

I know the colour has been very badly bleached from the photo and am not sure if this is creating a problem.

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/mem...7-myfamily.jpg

Cheers Fay

[0lBaldy]

Fay, I used your latest upload and tried to nudge out a little more detail.. lots of work left to do like blending in the dark bands and maybe a little more smoothing before painting. I would make all necessary corrections before starting to color your image. I am sure you will do a fine job, judging by your first sample!

I agree with Tommy, A better scan in color, at a higher resolution might reveal more. (you might want to turn off all automatic settings like sharpening, noise reduction, color balance, etc.. to get a better scan with more information to work with)

Basically all I did was:
Tried to find Image using Levels/curves, different channel adjustments etc...
Ctrl+J
Polaroid dust & scratch (Light) to get rid of some white areas, (Hide all mask paint white on light areas)
Merge down
Ctrl+J
Polaroid dust & scratch (Dark) to get rid of some dark areas, (Hide all mask paint white on dark areas)
Merge down
Desaturate
Levels/curves
Ctrl+J
Multiply 50% Opacity, Gradient mask to lighten right side so both sides are evenly exposed

[Kraellin]

ok, forgive me if this is already mentioned, but i like to give my own analysis without reading other's first.

and, welcome to RP.

the first rule of colorizing is, do a restoration first! if you color over dirt you get a dirty result.

and the first rule of restoration is, do no damage. the second rule is find the image. i took your last posted image, the really gray one and ran a couple of filters from paint shop pro on it. the first did a REALLY good job of bringing out more detail. that was the 'fade correction' filter. the second filter added a bit more contrasting. that was the 'clarify' filter. just those two filters have done wonders already.

the next step would be cleanup. you've got a lot of compression blocks showing here, those little squares you can see when you zoom in a bit. that may only be from having to reduce your original file size to post here and if so, then no problem. but if not, then try a 'jpg artifact removal' tool on it or a median filter, maybe.

the other thing is noise/dirt. you've got a ton on this image. you could try the polaroid dust and scratches filter set to the dark speck removal, but i suspect that might not work well enough. so, try a good noise removal program or filter. Neat Image is ofter mentioned here and there are several more out there. i happen to like paint shop pro's 'digital camera noise removal', but others might like something else. you can also clone, airbrush and smudge quite a bit of that away.

after you've got a good clean photo to work with, i'd search the forums for Vikki's posts on colorizing. she's an expert and about the best i've seen. and, if i remember rightly, i think she used the Worth1000 tutorial on colorizing, so check that out too.

edit: note that there's even some color coming back into this image now.

[FayMargaret]

Wow, this is all just so helpful. I really do appreciate the help. So much great advice and you have given me something to work on. I love being able to come here and learn so much.

Thank you, Fay

[FayMargaret]

I am going to begin by working on the noise/dirt removal.

[0lBaldy]

Craig, great job of finding the image.. I thought Dad was wearing shorts..
lol

[philbach]

I started with the blue channel using channel mixer in photoshop
Next using curves I increased the contrast
I used Neat Image to reduce the background irreuglarities

[chillin]

Originally Posted by TommyO

Steve,
It would be better if you started a new thread. You won't get much support buried within this one, and it is confusing.

Ditto...

[Kraellin]

thanks, OB