Help Me Please!!

[Ms Bay]

This is a very old picture of the great great grandmother of a friend of mine who wanted me to see if I could possibly bring out the features of her face. I think I have done a fairly good job, but I am having a problem with the mouth, the spots in her face and the uneven coloration. I think the color can be corrected if I could only smooth out the spots.

As you can see from the picture on the right, it was a pretty big challenge. I imposed the "restoration" on the left over the original one and everything falls into place, so at least I do have a pretty good likeness. Can someone please help me with the rest of it and tell me how you did it. I am using Photo Shop CS. All help is appreciated.

I love this forum!!!!

[Ms Bay]

Come on guys! Isn't there some senior member or somebody that can help me with this? Or is this one of those photos that is just too messed up that no one wants to take it on? Or is my "restoration" too confusing for anyone to try to help me finish it? Just a little turn in the right direction will be greatly appreciated. THNX!

[Duv]

I haven't forgot you..I'm still tryin to come up with a better result than yours.

Dave

[Legacy~Art]

Wow am i right to believe the right picture is the original?

Now that is going need alot of work...I am only learning but i shall have a try at it...

***sits on the couch waiting for the professionals to come help***

Can i ask you hun does it have blood on it or something like that it looks very worn out.

[Legacy~Art]

Is the technique i used...

I am not good at bringing mouths and things back on a picture but i think i do ok on smoothing skin.

Legacy~

[Ms Bay]

Whew! Thnx guys. I should have known it would be a real challenge for even the experts. When I said the picture was old, it's old. It's from sometime in the 1800's. And with that, I can't say what method was used in processing photos back then. It has a red cast in person, but when I scanned it to my computer, it was really, really red.The frame is made from a solid piece of wood and has leather stretched around it. It took me about 15 minutes to remove the picture without damaging it any more than it was. It is very delicate and crumbly, so I tried to be very, very careful. For my friend to have it restored at least enough for her to recognize her great great grand's face would be priceless and I wanted to make sure I did my best work (with a lot of help from my friends).

[Janet Petty]

It was difficult to do much with this photo as the size is very small and the resolution is terrible.

Here is basically what I did. I hope it helps.

Created two copies of the background layer. On one of the copies, I used Selective Color. On the other copy, Channel Mixer was used. I merged those two results, which left light and dark banding where the photo was rippled.

Created two copies of the banded result. On the topmost copy, a layer mask was added and Levels were adjusted until the banding disappeared on the darker areas. By painting over the overly light areas, a sort of equalization too place. Those two layers were then merged. (New layer>Layer>Merge Visible)

From there, a 50% gray layer was added over the top and the blending mode was set to overlay. Dodge and Burn were carefully used to bring out the contrast.

Once again the layers were merged and the clone tool was used to get rid of some of the spots and damage. I did not try to restore the whole photo. To do so would have not been time effective and would IMHO destroyed a lot of the character inherent in an old photo.

Ms. Bay, I hope you can scan this at a higher resolution and try some of the techniques with GREAT results for your friend.

Janet

[Ms Bay]

This is another try that I did after receiving Janet's instructions. I think this looks more like the original than the other one. Janet, you're a jewel!! Remember, her face is what I was really going for, I will use the other part of her to practice on later. Tell me what you think, do I need to do more?

[Janet Petty]

How much or how little you do is between you and your friend. I think between the two of us that we are on the right track. I couldn't figure out whether she had long hair or not. The picture indicated she might; but I wasn't willing to push it any further for fear of destroying the integrity already gained. You certainly smoothed out the blotchy skin better than I did; but then you had more invested in it than I did as well. I would eliminate some of the obvious marks and such around the hairline as they look contrived. But that is up to you as well. Your heart and your efforts are in the right place. Keep up the good work.

Janet

[Flora]

Hi everybody,

Great jobs on this picture which is in very bad conditions and, as Janet pointed out "the size is very small and the resolution is terrible. "

Ms Bay,
I know it can be frustrating to wait for somebody to react to our posts, but, for example, when you posted yours, it was 02:22 AM in my corner of the world .... .....
As for the ones online, they might be otherwise busy or just need time to deal with your request ....

I had a go at your picture (concentrated only on the lady's face), what I did is:

1) Used Channel Mixer to get an acceptable B&W vrsion to work on.
2) Used Curves/Levels to balance Tone and Contrast.
3) Used the Patch Tool to remove scratches and the worst discolorations.
4) Used several empty Layers (blendings> Normal, Multiply, Overlay) on wich I painted with a very soft Black/White brush (Opacity 10-30%) to enhance shadows, lights for an increased 3D feeling ... and to correct either too dark or too bright spots.
5) Used Noise>Dust&Scratches and Neat Image, soft settings, to smoothen her skin.
6) Used USM to improve on contrast.
7) Created a dark vignette around the edges of the picture.

[Juliana Ross]

Hi Everyone

I've been wondering about this question for awhile, and am not that deep into playing with photoshop yet.

For photos that have warps and bends (like this image) is it possible to take slices of the areas and manipulate them in a someway to change the plane to try to achieve the look of a flat surface?

I did something like this physically once ( it was a bugger, too fragile to unroll all the way) by bracing a curved print and shooting the work as I shifted it.
I then was able to manually slice the planes, mount them on a wax board and shoot another copy to do the manipulation work to hide my slice marks.
Is there a way to do this in PS at all?

I am finding many things i much prefer doing in PS, it is just taking me a lot of playing to transfer the manual skills into the new tool, so to speak.

Thanks!
Juliana

[Janet Petty]

Originally Posted by Juliana Ross

Hi Everyone

( it was a bugger,

Juliana

Yep, a real tough problem. Yes you can make slices. Have fun. Your quote explains it thoroughly. There are other ways to manipulate a photo. The list is long and the techniques are almost as varied as the people who do the work. The bottom line is experiment and find what works best for you.

I know. I know. That isn't much of an answer. I'm sure there are several who can give you a better one that is more technically oriented and easy to follow. Remember, however, , I'm left handed and my brain works backward sometimes. See the recent thread about lefties. Giggle.

Janet

[Juliana Ross]

thing is I know how to do this by hand you know the whole "back in my day we didn't have yer fancy photoshop....blah blah blah"

it is just waaaaay labour intensive along with being a huge pain.

I am trying to figure how and if it can be done in PS

Juliana

[Ms Bay]

Well folks, here is my final version of my friend's great, great grandmother! I think after using all of your suggestions and techniques (plus some that I found on the web), I came out with a pretty good likeness of her. When she was finished, I could even see my friend's features in her. Gail, my friend, loved the picture and she said it looks like her mom. I've never seen her mom! This was a real challenge and I couldn't have completed it without all of your kind help. Thank you!

[Janet Petty]

Kudos for sticking it out and triumphing over a very difficult hurdle. You did an excellent job.

Janet