Colour restoration

[David H]

Hi there This is my first post and I hope that I can get as much from this as I do from reading the other posts and instruction post I have seen in the past here so thanks in advance

I have this old picture to try and restore the colour in that as in a card frame on the wall.

What would be the best way you can advise to get some of the colour and detail back. I have tried duplicating the layer etc what would you advise without having to get something like the kodak gem plugins etc.? I was able to get some colour back to the water and hills etc by paining in some of it from the colour capture from the edges but I am having some problems getting the colours and the balance right on the boy.

By the way the blazer that the boy is wearing was navy blue I am told.

[Britsdad]

Hiya David,

It's taken you a while to post (since Oct 2008 ;o) )

Anyway welcome to RTP.

Just fancied a play with this one, wish I hadn't now ;o)
You didn't say what program you're useing, this is with Photoshop.
Far too complicated to say everything I did, hope the layers will explain a little.
Couldn't find any particular colour cast on this, and setting black, white and grey points didn't seem to do anything.
Used Shadow Highlights to get some contrast back into it and did all sorts of selective colour adjustments and hue sat layers trying to get something out of it, used colour replacement brush to get some blue into the blazer and trousers.
Eventually added some painted layers set to color blend for the skin, sky, water and hills.
Cropped all the dark stuff off and got this.

Hope this helps a little.....John

[David H]

Here is what I have finished with.

This is a combination of using levels and colour balancing along with painting back in a lot of the colour in seperate layers in colour mode etc.

Finaly I crop the image then lost all the puddles from the ground used a dark soft vignete to darken the edges then stroked a black then white border to the edges to finish the shot.

I would be interested to hear what anyone has to say?

[Britsdad]

Yep,

Exellent result, considering what you started with, I kinda liked the puddle tho' ;o)

John

[David H]

Truth be told I kind of like doing it the long way painting a lot in after correcting seperate colour layers etc. There is something very rewarding about it when you are finished lol I even went to the trouble of researching the scool badge and getting the right colours for the ties etc.

I don't know why my wife calls me perdantic at times though :p))

[Britsdad]

Yep,

Join the club ;o) I'm a Quality Engineer at a large American company here and that's one of the pre-requisites for the job.

John