Critique please

[4personnen]

Hi all! I have a badly damaged photo (discoloring due to water) and I've done a lot of work on it. Now I'm a bit bored and my eyes are are tired of it...:-). I know that it's far from perfect but I want something realistic..At the end I'll have probably to remove the foreground (hanging basket) and maybe the smaller person, as I adviced the customer at first (She refused but will maybe change her mind seeing the restoration).

Could you please point me to the obvious things to enhance, and free me back to my precious peace of mind.
Bigger images can be viewed here:
before:
http://i891.photobucket.com/albums/a.../beforebig.jpg
after:
http://i891.photobucket.com/albums/a...n/afterbig.jpg
Cheers,

[aartist]

Over all I like what you have done.

If its a restoration, the background may be
important enough to keep in focus. The crayon
face drawing is lost with the the rest of the
wood work and windows. Not sure if the customer
requested this.

The ceiling corners on the right and left of the
hanging pot has lost continuity or perspective.

The windows should be less red and more blackish.
And try to keep some of the reflective quality.

The man's pajamas should be white/green strips
overall and will need more work to remove the
damaged areas at his belly and crotch.

My vote is to keep the hanging pot and third person.
Unless of course the customers thinks otherwise.

[4personnen]

Hi thanks, I would have been able to sort it out with channels and a bit of cloning (regarding the discolouring) and I ended up with a bit of channels/calculations masks and a lot of cloning which make the rebuilding a bit erratic.The problem with the background focus is that as I done a lot of cloning from the same place, I end with a weird texture, I added some texture but it looked more fake than a out-of-focus one. The main person for the customer is the woman (it's herself, younger), That's why I was puzzled by the hanging basket. As for the stripped costume (I think it's a fancy dress meant to mimic African costumes) you're right, but It's still hard there to clone and not to paint. I want everything but a painted picture. I'll try again, glad there is layers in PS.

[4personnen]

Just to give some news...The customer accepted the image I made with minor enhancements. Just unbluring the background. She did not care about the man on the left for it's herself that was considered. That's it! thanks anyway for the input.

[Kraellin]

i see everyone shied away from this one. cant say i blame them; it was a stinker. thankfully, most of the important information wasnt too bad off.

you're going to have to forgive me if i dont give a lot of detail on what i did. this was done over several days, with a day or two skipped in there, so about all i can say is, it was a LOT of detail work with smudge, airbrush and clone, zoomed way in and then out and in and out... etc. near the end i also did some brightening and contrasting along with a curves and some color balance. i'm pretty sure i also doubled the image size before starting and then reduced it after i was done. it's easier to get into the cracks that way

[4personnen]

Thank you! It's over now but I'll try to do it again when I'll get time...The problem is to keep a pattern of texture believable with all that cloning...I'd rather do my own texture and "draw" all these pieces of walls and furnitures with my texture...Can you remember how many different color balance layers or the like you ended up to get rid of the discolorations?
My first job with this photo was to identify with the eye dropper the number of cast in the boy's costumes, the woman and walls. I ended with 7 different layers (and their respective masks) which was not perfect (far from).

[Kraellin]

i didnt use color balance to get rid of discolorations. i airbrushed them on blank layers, often using blend modes of one type or another to get the colors right. this method keeps me mostly from having to use masks. i also turn the density setting down on the airbrush and turn the opacity way down, to like 2 to 5 maybe. i use the color picker from the good parts of the image to get the color right for the airbrush and alter it a bit as i go.

i used color balance on the whole image to get some of the reds out and tweak the colors a bit.

[4personnen]

Thanks.
I'm a bit of masks nerd so this is the 1st thing I think of when I'm into a problem like that...So I got blinkers on everything else...Shame on me.

I'll try your method, seem less tedious than mine, which does not work.
I keep this thread in my pocket for further digging. Thank you very much for having taken the time.

[Kraellin]

nothing wrong with using masks if it gets the results you want. when all else fails, anything can be done if you're willing to go pixel by pixel... or at least a few thousand at a time

[twtracy]

Craig, you do amazing work
Tom

[Kraellin]

thanks, tom. always love hearing that