Newbie...... Trying to figure this out

[ninjaman001]

Hi all,

I have been here a while and trying to learn as much from you guys as I can. I've wanted to get my skills up to par before I start posting, because you guys are intimidating!

I have a picture of my father when he returned from the Korean war and it has this weird blue stain damage. This was scanned from a slide that I found. In PS, I looked at the channels and the damage is mainly in the blue channel, but there is damage in all channels to some degree. There's this weird hazing all over the photo also.

So how do I go about this? I started with an adj. layer>levels and adjusted the black/white points. Next I tried denoise/and or despeckle, but neither seems to work too well. Then I tried to apply the red channel into the blue to minimize the stains, but I keep losing my color. After I do this, do I have to hand color? I'm really at a loss as to how to approach this. I'm not really looking for someone to do it for me, just what workflow works best for damage like this.

Anyway, here's the photo:

http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/1963/fgfgm.jpg

LARGER SIZE ORIGINAL
http://img168.imageshack.us/img168/1963/fgfgm.jpg

PS This is my first posting, so I hope I got all of this right. I have "Guy's Disease" and didn't read any of the instruction manual on posting.......
NINJAMAN001

[ninjaman001]

Larger pic if needed......not sure of size or resolution issues............


http://img142.imageshack.us/img142/1963/fgfgm.jpg

[Cupcake]

You can link as large as you want.
It would be better if it was larger.

[ninjaman001]

My feeble attempt....... not sure where to go next........


http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/6564/fgfgmwip.jpg

[ninjaman001]

Thanks Cupcake....... I'll try to up the size.

[ninjaman001]

Larger size added to first message..............

[Cupcake]

Remove the blue with the color brush.
Clone some parts,and heal also
Fix the faded parts by light painting.
Add more colors to make it richer.

This was with the small picture.

This is the larger file.(save picture as is)
http://img29.imageshack.us/img29/3350/purplefull.jpg

[ninjaman001]

Nice work Cupcake. I can really see a lot of details that I couldn't before.

"Remove the blue with the color brush": exactly how do I do this? And if there is a tutorial on it, I'll gladly read it if you point me in the right direction.

And "light painting": do you mean a soft, low opacity brush to lessen the faded parts?


Thanks for replying.

NINJAMAN001

[Cupcake]

Use your painting brush,
choose the color you want with the color picker. Then use the size brush you want with color from the drop down window.
Paint over to replace the blue.
Light painting:
Make a new layer fill with 50% gray, change the layer to soft light.

Paint with the burn or dodge tool.

[ninjaman001]

Ahhh........ {light bulb comes on}..................

Thanks, I'm going to work on that as soon as I get home from work!

[0lBaldy]

ninjaman001, Welcome to RetouchPRO!
Hope you enjoy your stay here and make lots of friends.

my version went something like this:
Ctrl+J {Background copy), on this layer I used a soft history brush, fairly large, set at multiply and around 20% and darkened the lighter areas and used the softness of the brush to help blend in... also did some healing to get rid of the glaring hot spots... then used the free version of Neat Image at the Muddy setting
Ctrl+J (copy layer) (set to Darken)
channel mixer adjustment layer
set to monochrome, red 76%, green 38%, blue 0
(Hold down Alt Key while clicking the line separating the adj layer and the one below)
New layer
Shft+Ctrl+Alt+E (Merge into new layer)
select all eyes.. Ctrl+J (to put them on their own layer) Magnify and sharpen just a bit... hold down the Alt key while clicking the mask icon (creates a hide all mask) paint white on just the whites and Irises
New layer
Shft+Ctrl+Alt+E (Merge into new layer)
Dust and scratches filter @ radius 3, threshold 0
hold down the Alt key while clicking the mask icon (creates a hide all mask) Magnify and Paint with a small, soft, white brush on all the light and dark spots

[ninjaman001]

Awesome OlBaldy, Thanks for the very detailed workflow. I will spend hours studying this!!

I especially like the way you removed the reflections in the eye glasses.

My father is 84 now and showing signs of ALS. I want to present him with some of his old pictures after I restore/retouch them. This is an awesome site with a lot of very awesome members!!!

Thanks once again!!

NINJAMAN001

[0lBaldy]

Originally Posted by ninjaman001

Awesome OlBaldy, Thanks for the very detailed workflow. I will spend hours studying this!!
NINJAMAN001

Your welcome

Take your time be patient!
Good luck!