Missing Eyes

[Terry]

I have a Photo taken in 1932 of my wifes grandfather. It,s very faded, and the eyes and face detail have gone complety, Im doing OK on the face.
Its the eyes Im having the trouble with, there is nothing to build on. Can some one give me some advice Please.

[Sanda]

HI Terry welcome to RetouchPro. if you could post an example of the photo I'm sure some of the very talented people here will be able to advise you.

[Guest]

Missing eyes

I recently restored two pictures for someone...one of the grandparents together and the other of the grandmother alone. I had the same problem with eyes--they were so dark on grandma that you couldn't bring them out as there was just no detail there. So I took her eyes from the other picture and pasted them onto it, resized them etc., then erased the edges to blend them in, and matched the contrast etc. with the new picture. Worked great.

So, if you have another picture of him with a similar facial direction, steal the eyes from that one and make them work. If you don't have another picture, then use the eyes from a family member who "has his eyes."

Phyllis

[Guest]

I keep a page of eyes for such ocassions. Stealing body parts is part of the digital game. A guess is better than a photo with bad or no eyes.

[Guest]

Grandpa's Sexy Eyes

Fugitive says:
<<I keep a page of eyes for such ocassions. Stealing body parts is part of the digital game. A guess is better than a photo with bad or no eyes.>>

Hey, good idea! But, I would guess that the eyes in YOUR collection would be those of sexy women! I would love to see how Grandpa looks in those!

Phyllis

[Guest]

Well yes they are Phyllis, but there are millions out there to choose from. I'm just trying to spread the knowlege. There are no restraints in this wonderful new medium, we can go anywhere we're willing to go.

[Terry]

thanks one and all for the help,
I just made a copy of the photo, so you can have a look and see what you think.

yours
Terry

[Ed_L]

Hi Terry,

It's hard to tell what's there by the small image. Have you tried making a duplicate layer of the background, then changing the blending mode to screen? If this has been done (maybe more than once), and you can't pull anything out of it, I don't know of another way that would be better than replacing the eyes, as has been suggested already. Not knowing if you're familiar with screen blending mode, I'll just say that it's the eyes you're after. If the rest of the image gets too light, we can work on that with good success. There are many people more knowledgeable than yours truly, so keep asking questions, and let us know how you're progressing. Good luck.

Another possibility if you have the original, is to rescan for the eye detail if possible.

Ed

[Mig]

I love this picture - very nice. However, if you attempt to mess with their eyes by replacing them your restoration will belong in another thread begun recently by Doug regarding your worst restorations.
Messing with eyes is tricky. Instead of replacing them, carefully dodge and burn around them to emphasize them ever so slightly. The person looking at the picture will fill in the missing data for themselves.

[Mig]

Here's a quickie example of dodge and burn only - maybe this is the effect you're looking for.

M

[Terry]

Thanks for the tip Mig

I see what you mean,
I put in some new eyes to day, and what a mess.

terry