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Hello all,
The photo at http://jazzdiver.com/photoshop/restoration.jpg (205KB, 870x600 px) shows my efforts of editing an old family photo in an attemtpt to clean up flaws in the image and give it a bit of more contrast snap; the original is on the left, the edited version on the right. While I feel I've done relatively well, I'm sure the image could be further improved upon if I knew the best techniques to apply (I'll be studying Katrin Eismann's "Photoshop Restoration & Retouching" some over the holidays).
The original image I used was scanned at 720ppi from a 3.5x5-inch photo, which I'm guessing may have even been a duplicate itself of the true original photo, as the blemishes in the image were not all evident in the emulsion of the photo I worked from. My edits consisted of cleanup of dust specks and other larger blemishes, boosting contrast some via levels adjustment, trying to remove some of the texture of the photo paper via a light gaussian blur, sharpening the image a bit overall, and ultimately applying a subtle sepia tint (not shown in the image here). I wanted to brighten up the woman's dress without totatlly blowing out the few details in it and wasn't sure how best to achieve that; ultimately I simply used the dodge tool in conjunction with my pen tablet, the pressure dynamics allowing me to basically "feather-dust" the image, applying gradual brightness changes in a random pattern of brush strokes that weren't as obvious.
As I say, I'm pretty pleased with the result, given the limited detail in the original image. However, boosting the contrast and applying some sharpening did seem to diminish any sense of smoothness in the skin tones and I'm curious as to the opinions of others on the result I obtained. Also, can you suggest any way to further improve the appearance of the skin? It seemed to me that most any approach seemed to risk increasing the noise present in the image such that there was a very limited degree of improvement that might be realized here. I'd liked to have brought out more detail in the faces, but there simply was little to work with...zooming into the image showed me that the texture in the paper was dominating over the actual image detail, so I avoided doing anything that would exaggerate the texture.
Thanks in advance for any feedback.
Daryl
The photo at http://jazzdiver.com/photoshop/restoration.jpg (205KB, 870x600 px) shows my efforts of editing an old family photo in an attemtpt to clean up flaws in the image and give it a bit of more contrast snap; the original is on the left, the edited version on the right. While I feel I've done relatively well, I'm sure the image could be further improved upon if I knew the best techniques to apply (I'll be studying Katrin Eismann's "Photoshop Restoration & Retouching" some over the holidays).
The original image I used was scanned at 720ppi from a 3.5x5-inch photo, which I'm guessing may have even been a duplicate itself of the true original photo, as the blemishes in the image were not all evident in the emulsion of the photo I worked from. My edits consisted of cleanup of dust specks and other larger blemishes, boosting contrast some via levels adjustment, trying to remove some of the texture of the photo paper via a light gaussian blur, sharpening the image a bit overall, and ultimately applying a subtle sepia tint (not shown in the image here). I wanted to brighten up the woman's dress without totatlly blowing out the few details in it and wasn't sure how best to achieve that; ultimately I simply used the dodge tool in conjunction with my pen tablet, the pressure dynamics allowing me to basically "feather-dust" the image, applying gradual brightness changes in a random pattern of brush strokes that weren't as obvious.
As I say, I'm pretty pleased with the result, given the limited detail in the original image. However, boosting the contrast and applying some sharpening did seem to diminish any sense of smoothness in the skin tones and I'm curious as to the opinions of others on the result I obtained. Also, can you suggest any way to further improve the appearance of the skin? It seemed to me that most any approach seemed to risk increasing the noise present in the image such that there was a very limited degree of improvement that might be realized here. I'd liked to have brought out more detail in the faces, but there simply was little to work with...zooming into the image showed me that the texture in the paper was dominating over the actual image detail, so I avoided doing anything that would exaggerate the texture.
Thanks in advance for any feedback.
Daryl
So, I've come a long ways but feel stuck on two points: (1) My background looks like a cop-out (2) the girls in the left rear (could they be guys?) Are too dense, have the wrong feel...
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