Technique for dealing with background

[designer74]

Originally Posted by maverick911

Hey Tom, please dont apologise. I cant thank you enough. I often find it difficult (usually impossible) to transpose written tutorials onto something I am trying to achieve, so to have someone show me on my image is invaluable. I ran a successful company for 30 years and thought I was reasonably intelligent. Photoshop has changed that opinion! I spent 3 hours yesterday trying to achieve something on a colorization!

Thank you again.

Mark

Thanks Mark. You seem to be more than capable in Photoshop so no need to be modest.
As for colorization, I may be of some assistance, provided you think my sample is acceptable.
Here's an image I colorized in response to a colorization request post.
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/mem...fix-collar.jpg

The thread is here:
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/pho...n-problem.html

If you like it, I can do a Youtube video with your image if you haven't already completed it to your satisfaction.
Regards,
Tom

[designer74]

Originally Posted by Kraellin

very nice, designer!

Thanks very much.

[maverick911]

Originally Posted by designer74

If you like it, I can do a Youtube video with your image if you haven't already completed it to your satisfaction.
Regards,
Tom

Tom, could I take up your offer on this one please?. I am trying to colorize this one and would appreciate knowing how you would approach this. I am planning to give this my second cousin who is the daughter of the bride & groom in this image, for her 80th birthday next month, so I would really like to make a good job of it in subtle colours of the period.

http://markwebb.smugmug.com/photos/1...1_Pbx3y-X3.jpg

Mark

[Kraellin]

maverick,

first and foremost, do a good restore BEFORE trying to colorize! trying to do both at once can be done, but shld only be done by a very accomplished artist/restorer.

clean the specks. use polaroid dust and scratches filter or a decent noise reducer.

even the lighting. there are too dark areas and too white. try and balance those up with the whole.

the woman on the right is a little blurred. a usm filter shld help that area. just select the area and apply the filter or use a sharpen tool if you have one.

it's a great picture. take your time and have fun

[designer74]

Mark,
I'm making a video now.

Craig, thanks for the tip on polaroid dust and scratches.
The demo on their site looks promising but i couldn't get it to work properly on first try.

Tom

[maverick911]

Originally Posted by Kraellin

maverick,

first and foremost, do a good restore BEFORE trying to colorize! trying to do both at once can be done, but shld only be done by a very accomplished artist/restorer.

clean the specks. use polaroid dust and scratches filter or a decent noise reducer.

even the lighting. there are too dark areas and too white. try and balance those up with the whole.

the woman on the right is a little blurred. a usm filter shld help that area. just select the area and apply the filter or use a sharpen tool if you have one.

it's a great picture. take your time and have fun

Great tips again, thank you Craig. All makes sense. I couldn't find the Polaroid Dust & Scratch filter, looks like it may no longer be available?
I use Neat Image which I think works well. Sometimes I think it can take out too much detail but I think it works well with this?

http://markwebb.smugmug.com/photos/1...6_QpfJW-XL.jpg

Your suggestion of a US filter shield - do you mean to select the area and apply the Unsharp Mask>

[maverick911]

Originally Posted by designer74

Mark,
I'm making a video now.

Craig, thanks for the tip on polaroid dust and scratches.
The demo on their site looks promising but i couldn't get it to work properly on first try.

Tom

Thanks Tom, I look forward to it.

[designer74]

here's my take on the image (stayed up till 5am getting this recorded and uploaded)

it should play in fullscreen mode and 720p

parts 1-3 are prepping the image for colorizing:
sharpen, noise and dust removal, fix imbalance of lights and darks, lower brightness on too bright areas, add vignette to focus attention on the subjects

part for is beginning of colorize
i didn't do whole image as what I did on one person could be done for rest of image

part1 http://www.youtube.com/v/zMqhbDYsXqs&fmt=22
part2 http://www.youtube.com/v/yY6MFjknHuA&fmt=22 fixed link
part3 http://www.youtube.com/v/7G3x85dxhsM&fmt=22
part4 http://www.youtube.com/v/-rBppXw6xak&fmt=22

Hope this helps. Tell me if anything is unclear.

Craig, would like your feedback if you have a chance.

Tom

[maverick911]

Tom, I am soooh grateful to you. That is so informative to watch you useing PS and on MY image That has helped me so much with the use of PS and in particular the use of layers which I have had such a problem getting my head around from written tutorials.

Just one thing.......pts 2 & 3 are the same video. Did you deal with the background in Pt3?

Fantastic pal.....thank you.

[designer74]

i'll fix that link
thx for the heads up

as for the video, I didn't explain everything I was doing as I did for the sake of time. So if there's something you're unclear on such as masking parts of an image, I'll be happy to make a video on that.

Tom

[designer74]

Originally Posted by maverick911

Just one thing.......pts 2 & 3 are the same video. Did you deal with the background in Pt3?

I replaced part 2 which I think was the same as 3
try the original links above

tell me if thats better

[maverick911]

Your very kind, thanks again Tom

[Kraellin]

hi designer,

i like most of your techniques and even learned a thing or three. your colorizing is a bit diff from mine but i liked your use of the overlay mode and may have to borrow that one, myself. the dust and scratches and subsequent masking was interesting and i've done similar with paint shop pro's 'digital camera noise removal'. i hadnt thought of using the levels with masking to shade, however, but it makes perfect sense with your other techniques.

you've made a couple choices that i might or might not have made, depending on what style, mode or era one was going for, but those are subjective choices, or cilent choices. the main one is overall grain in the image. the older the film, often the more grain is noticable, so if you were trying to restore to the time period, then leaving more grain showing would be good. if you were trying to bring an older photo up to a more modern look (which some clients prefer), then a more smooth look would be good. the same holds true for the colorizing. taking out the gray pixels from the woman's face does make it look better, but it's not quite as representative of making it look like an old time colorization, but again, this is a personal preference or client requested feature. totally up to you and the client. i just mention it here as reference for others doing this sort of thing.

another personal preference is the shading. i wouldnt have gone quite so dark on the some of the suits and background, particularly the background. you had some detail there that got kind of faded out by being a bit too dark.

oh, and the guy on the left's forehead... overshaded. you have to stay consistent with the original lighting and the forehead got painted a bit too dark. you can sometimes justify it by altering some of the other lighting or even changing it completely (very hard sometimes), but in older photos, even studio photos, the lighting was often fairly simplistic. this one seems to have been shot purely from the front, so a somewhat bright forehead is perfectly fine, but the darkened one looks out of place.

maybe i'll have to start a challenge or two in the forum here for restoring to a certain period, regardless of the original image and its time frame.

overall, you did a nice job. because you seem to know your way around this stuff and certainly photoshop, i was bit nit-picky, so dont let my remarks bite. ya done gooder

oh, and extra points for doing the videos! very helpful!

[designer74]

Hi Craig,

The feedback is much appreciated. I think all your points are spot on. I think my errors are linked to a minimal interest in the project.

Personally, I avoid restoration and colorization whenever I can because its tiresome and not what I enjoy doing. As a result, I have little opportunity to practice it and haven't looked into getting good at it.

That said, I'm a sucker for someone needing help so I dived into this thread and others like it. But, give me a retouch project and I'm much more interested in learning everything I can.

Again, thanks for the kind words and good advice.

Tom

[Kraellin]

you're welcome.

and the help is appreciated, particularly the videos!

besides, i learned a couple things and that's always good. in fact, i already used your levels mask technique. in psp i dont really have to mask the levels layer. it comes up as a b&w so i just paint black to erase and paint white on it to add back. works a charm. i've done that on other filters; dont know why i never tried it on levels.

[maverick911]

OK, I had a shot at this. I wanted to keep the feel of the period and I hope I have achieved that. I would appreciate feedback on how I might improve on it.

I found this so rewarding and I wouldn't have been able to achieve it without this forum. A very big thank you to all those that have helped me and a special thanks to Tom, designer74 whose help has been way beyond the call of duty

This restoration will be a gift to the daughter of the bride and groom who is 80 years next month.

http://markwebb.smugmug.com/photos/1...6_aoKjs-X2.jpg Original

http://markwebb.smugmug.com/photos/1...tNZ4k-X2-2.jpg My Colorization

[Flashtones]

Originally Posted by designer74

here's my take on the image (stayed up till 5am getting this recorded and uploaded)

it should play in fullscreen mode and 720p

parts 1-3 are prepping the image for colorizing:
sharpen, noise and dust removal, fix imbalance of lights and darks, lower brightness on too bright areas, add vignette to focus attention on the subjects

part for is beginning of colorize
i didn't do whole image as what I did on one person could be done for rest of image

part1 http://www.youtube.com/v/zMqhbDYsXqs&fmt=22
part2 http://www.youtube.com/v/yY6MFjknHuA&fmt=22 fixed link
part3 http://www.youtube.com/v/7G3x85dxhsM&fmt=22
part4 http://www.youtube.com/v/-rBppXw6xak&fmt=22

Hope this helps. Tell me if anything is unclear.

Craig, would like your feedback if you have a chance.

Tom

I've enjoyed what I've seen but for some reason only vids 1 & 3 are working for me. 2 & 4 wont load. Not sure if I'm the only one having this problem.

[maverick911]

They work fine for me. When you have seen Part1 go to Toms Channel on Youtube and view direct from Youtube. That should work?

[Flashtones]

Originally Posted by maverick911

They work fine for me. When you have seen Part1 go to Toms Channel on Youtube and view direct from Youtube. That should work?

Have you tried them today?

This is what I'm getting. But maybe it's a problem with my service provider.

EDIT: this does seem to be happening on other youtube channels for me as well today, so it's very likely a problem on my end..

[maverick911]

Yes, all working today. Go to Youtube and search tomteacehesphotoshop. That should work.