Question

[Ron_H]

Here is a before and after old photo. It's going on a poster collage for a memorial service. I've taken it to a point I'm satisfied with it except the dark crown vs the lighter hair. I've worked with it to try to blend the shading, and everything I've done looks rough. I hope someone can make a suggestion.

I'll also welcome any other suggestions anyone is willing to make.

Thanks,Ron_H

[Sweetlight]

Ron,

First of all I think you did a great job on that.

You might want to look at the hair just above the forehead. Seems to be a distinct line where the dark runs into the light. I would just even it out a bit but once again, nice work.

Chris

[Ron_H]

Chris,

Thank you for the compliment. The hair above the forehead is my problem. I haven't been able to smooth that line and not have the results look clumsy. I'm hoping to find a technique for fading that line between light and dark without losing the definition of the hair.

Ron

[Dave.Cox]

Hi Ron. I tool a look at your photo. You can fade the line by adjusting the level of the top section, but you are still going to loose the definition of the hair, because the darker portion of the hair already has less definition in your image. Due to this, the only way you would really get it to look natural, is some very careful recreation of the top portion through some creative cloning and healing.

[chillin]

I would use curves adjustments (taking a sample from a good area),
stamp tool and D&B.

[Southbay]

Just a quick go at it. Selected top part of hair and adjusted levels, then smoothed border with a stroke of cloning brush. Painted hair overall lightly, with 15% of darkest hair tone.

[W.Smith]

Originally Posted by chillin

I would use curves adjustments (taking a sample from a good area),
stamp tool and D&B.

Excellent, chillin! The top right part. Now do the rest.

[Ron_H]

Honestly, Southbay's and Chillin;s solutions looked as close to what I think my mother would have looked like at that age. There's no one left to confirm or deny. I wanted to stay with Sepia. Working from a combination of inputs I got what I wanted without having to insert someone else's hair. Southbay this part lost me, please elucidate. "Painted hair overall lightly, with 15% of darkest hair tone". I'll enclose what I'm going with at under 100k. Those collages take a lot of photos so you may be hearing from me again during this project. I'm doing this in the condition of a basket case. I'm almost through a gangly 12 yr old. Quite cathartic actually.

[Southbay]

Originally Posted by Ron_H

Southbay this part lost me, please elucidate. "Painted hair overall lightly, with 15% of darkest hair tone".

Select a coarse brush (27 diameter is highlighted). For your "paint" color, sample a spot of the hair where it's darkest (option/click with brush tool to get eyedropper for sampling).

Then "paint" the hair a bit to even out the tone.

A very nice photo, BTW. Very brown sepia - what year was it taken?

SB

[dmrdm]

I'd probably just paint as the above posted mentioned also. Of course, on a different layer so I could dink with it. I didn't download the photo to play with it...maybe even changing the brush mode to color.

That darkness of the line on the right arm (the real right arm) bugs me some also. It's just that the line is so defined. I'd probably fade that out some. Clone/paint, whatever. Sometimes you just have to try a few different things on a few different layers and click them on and off to see what you think is best.

It's a great photo.

[Ron_H]

Thank you all for your help and instrucion. DRMRDM is right the right arm had to be recreated and I will address the line. There was no date attached. She reached 87 and I found this photo labeled with her name, in family records. I would guess 18 mo. to 3 yrs, (after 5 kids you'd think I'd be better at this guess). That would make the picture as having been taken between 1923 - 1925. It's funny because as beautiful as she turned out, all 3 of her sisters were equally stunning. Imagine a straght laced, immigrant Italian father riding herd on that cluster in a small hard-coal mining town in PA. Aesrhetically, would you lighten the brownness of the Sepia? I was just going by the original, but guess there's no strict need to stay with it.

[Southbay]

Originally Posted by dmrdm

Sometimes you just have to try a few different things on a few different layers and click them on and off to see what you think is best.

Agreed. In general, always a good idea.

Ron_H, I kind of like that deeper brown and haven't seen it that often in the scanning I've done. It's nice on tight studio portraits.

Here's a couple of examples of the tones I offer clients - both from the Pixel Genius collection. Neither really approaches the rich, original tone of your image. I'd leave it the way it is.

[Ron_H]

I have to admit ignorance of the Pixel Genius Collection. I will look it up. Although I have offered my services, I've never been able to get my foot in the door of the industry. I do however love doing this stuff and enjoy having the appropriate tools.

[Southbay]

I usually use the tones from the PhotoKit suite available here:
http://www.pixelgenius.com/index.html

Or you can find great tones, here.
http://www.thelightsright.com/TLRBWToning

SB

[Ron_H]

Again, thank you.

[dmrdm]

I don't know if you want to dink with it or not, but a free program called Virtual Photographer from Optik Verne Labs has some really nice aged effects. It is a plug in and would be accessed by going under your filters under photoshop.

[Southbay]

Sorry to nit pick: that's Verve.

[chillin]

Originally Posted by W.Smith

Excellent, chillin! The top right part. Now do the rest.

Its a low quality jpeg, but can give you some idea. You could try different sepia tones until you get what you want.