What's the best way to retouch this?

[-HT-]

How would you retouch the wrinkles on this curtain?

IHP, D&B, Frequency Separation, airbrushing...I struggle to find an efficient way while maintaining the detail integrity.

Example

I'd imagine the "right" way is to D&B it precisely, but it sure isn't quick and easy.

[mistermonday]

It might be easier and more effective to completely replace the curtain.
Regards, Murray

[0lBaldy]

Might not be the right way -- but--- quick and easy... Degrunge, add noise, motion blur

[lsmarz]

I'm very new to all this but I thought I would give it a try. I hope you don't mind since I'm definitely not a pro.

I used the patch and clone tools to take out most of the wrinkles, then degrunge, then motion blur. I did leave some of the wrinkles at the bottom just to see how those things worked without the cloning. Also, I think I was working on the smaller jpg image.

Frankly, I like the wrinkles in the curtain in the original.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...JD/Curtain.jpg

[John Wheeler]

Hi -HT-
A lot of good suggestions already.
If this is a case where you wished a totally different curtain had been there for the shot, they I agree with Murray that the best way would probably be to replace it rather than try and repair it.

OlBaldy and lsmarz provided some interesting and productive techniques to accomplish a significant repair.

If what you are looking for is to keep a similar look yet reduce the significance of the wrinkles so they don't draw the eye as much, here is a path to consider (tried to figure a way to use the Photoshop math to D&B the wrinkles simultaneously so came up with this on the fly though I cannot say it is unique or not done this way before by someone else)

- duplicate original and make Smart Object
- Apply high pass filter (tune to taste later)
- Add invert adjustment layer and group this with the Smart Object
- Make group a linear blend to blend with original image (this blend will behave like D&B) and add Layer Mask to Hide all
- Brush Layer Mask with white, soft, and low opacity brush over the minor folds in direction of the major folds in the curtain. Where you paint will take out wrinkles so what I did was leave in the major folds and painted over the minor folds
- Adjust both group Layer opacity (to add some texture back) and high pass filter to taste.

Here is a quick example:

Curtain-SFW.jpg

Hope that is useful for you.

[Tony W]

Lots of good suggestions. The obvious one is to get it right at time of shoot i.e. iron the bloody curtains!

Anyway assuming you want to keep the look of the material the following may work.
Dup layer and apply filter Noise>Median and set to blur image too much
Add layer mask and invert to hide filter
Paint on layer mask curtain folds to reveal the Median blur adjust opacity of the brush to low and keep going until satisfied

Depending on what you want my image may have either gone too far or not far enough!

[lsmarz]

Agreed. I like the curtains better with the wrinkles just toned down a bit.

[arueff]

Well, I don't know if what you have asked can be done, but here is something you might like