How to repair skin on one of the worst pics you may ever see?

[dipech]

Hi Everyone!

Okay here is a good challenge. This picture is in about the worst condition possible. It's from probably the late 1800's and was pasted onto some kind of cloth that is now in taters. It's easy enough to entirely replace the background and take care of her blouse and hair, but the problem is what to do about her skin ? What tools are recommended for this kind of problem??

I know all the compression makes it hard to see this photo clearly so I've copied mostly just the face to post here.

Thanks very much for any advice/ suggestions,
Diane

[dipech]

Here is as far as I've gotten. I used the dust and scratches filter under noise which got rid of many of the marks. The background is just something I came up with quickly and will go as soon as I find something much nicer...

What is about the best that could be done for this picture??

Diane

[roger_ele]

Hi Diane,

I have been fooling around with a concept I picked up here on this forum of exagerating what I am trying to fix, retouching, then removing the exageration ... so this is what I tried on this one ... I didn't do it all the way, just past the 'unretouchable skin damage'

So this is what I did (steps included in image)

1)Duplicated layer (this is the layer all cloning is done on)

2)Created curves adjustment layer - increased contrast of skin area, changed curves adjustment layer mode to luminosity so exagerated color wouldn't distract.

3)Cloned skin back and forth over itself, brush about half the size of her pupil for most part, from 20 to 50 % opacity on the brush. Use all layers unchaecked. Turned eyeball on and off while cloning to make sure I was keeping the same shape to the face.

4)Adjusted curve to taste so it no longer exagerated.

The skin would still need more work, but now it is smooth enough for normal retouching techniques.

Hope this helps,
Roger

[roger_ele]

My photo got left behind ...

[dipech]

Hi Roger!

Thank you once again for being there to help!! This is looking great and it
looks like this technique will do the trick. Won't be able to try it out tiil Sun. night/ Monday.

Don't know if you can really see just how bad this lady's skin is with all the jpeg compression, but it's alot worse than how it came out above.

This woman's great-granddaughter is going to be very very happy...

Best regards,
Diane

[dipech]

Roger,

Re: what you wrote earlier

"I have been fooling around with a concept I picked up here on this forum of exagerating what I am trying to fix, retouching, then removing the exageration ...

Is the idea that the above enables you to more clearly see the damage you're trying to fix?

So here is the best I've been able to get that picture so far. Any comments, suggestions??

Again I got stuck on the lighting issue--trying to guess where the shadows and highlights should be and spent way too much time experimenting. How do you tell on something like this?

Also with something as damaged as this, what sharpening techniques do you recommend to sharpen without bringing out even more of the damage?

Best regards,
Diane

I'll post the pic in the next post below

[dipech]

Here is that photo...

[roger_ele]

Hi Diane,

Is the idea that the above enables you to more clearly see the damage you're trying to fix?

Yes!

On your other questions, this is not what you asked but I think it might get to the heart of it. When I am working on an image I am in a zone that feels like I am playing pick-up sticks (remove a stick without the pile moving). I concentrate on changing subtle things, do each thing a little less than I might be inclined too, then check it and do more so that I don't lose the shape. When I do lose the shape I will bring the original image back in that spot at a low opacity and work it again.

Your last try is good. It looks a little contrasty with the lit skin all being too light. I like the gentle curve around the edges.

The shape of highlights and shadows communicate the shape of the face and the direction of the light. Highlights are the white/off-white reflections on the face and when I say shadow shape I mean specific shape not just where they are. For instance if a nose shadow has a bump on it it communicates a dip in the cheek (if the shadow changes brightness where the cheek would dip) or a bump on the nose. Try tracing the shape of the shadows and highlights on a good picture, then only after seeing how the highlights and shadows communicate shape notice the gradual shading with-in the shadows and the lit areas that communicate more shape. They are consistent with the shape and the direction of the light source(s).

Sorry if this is long, I find this stuff hard to explain. I don't have any art training so I am eager to see how anyone else might take a stab at this.

In regards to sharpening, I don't really know .... sometimes an amount around 25 and a radius around 250 can bring out shapes without sharpening detail. It is either sharpen detail or shapes ...

Hope this helps,
Roger

[dipech]

Hi Roger!

Thanks very much for your post. I had already started to redo the picture from the beginning and your post gave me the idea to lay the new version with the proper shape at a low opacity over the last one I posted. Below is my revised version.

This sure is one tough picture to restore!

Thanks also for taking the time to explain about the shape of the highlights and shadows. I will have to do some studying on this.

Best Regards,
Diane

[roger_ele]

Go girl, you are getting there!

Front of the face is still flat, needs highlights off of the highest spots (closest to you); tip of the nose, forhead, cheeks, chin, bridge of the nose. Then a little lighter at the top (closest to you) for the rounded stuff surounding the highlights.

Way to go!
Roger

Edit> I just took a second look, darken down the skin a whole bunch (to normal skin brightness) before you add back in the highlights.

[dipech]

Originally posted by roger_ele

Front of the face is still flat, needs highlights off of the highest spots (closest to you); tip of the nose, forhead, cheeks, chin, bridge of the nose. Then a little lighter at the top (closest to you) for the rounded stuff surounding the highlights.

Hi Roger,

Thanks very much for the words of encouragement and the tip above as to what to highlight. It's easy to get very discouraged when working on something like this... I was a little confused by the second sentence above; I'm not quite sure what is the rounded stuff surrounding the highlights?

Best Regards,
Diane

[roger_ele]

Hi Diane,

I'm not quite sure what is the rounded stuff surrounding the highlights?

Skin

Put a flashlight on a ball or any other curved object with some reflectivity. Starting from the reflection of the light (the highlight) working out you then have the very lightest areas with detail (rounded stuff around the highlights) and then it gradually gets darker, the further around the curve the darker it gets (this is the shading that communicates shape).

So first we decide where the highlights go (which spots would directly reflect the light. Then the lightest areas around those highlights would be where the shape of the face is almost on the same plane as the highlight (the cheek and forhead would have a much larger area of lightest skin around the highlights than the nose ...

what I am trying to do is examine why curved objects (like faces) respond to light with highlights and shading the way they do, so that we can work backwards with 'I want to cummunicate this shape so what shading would communicate that shape' kind of thinking.

Welcome to my mind ... it is ok to come up for air
Roger

[Rawessence]

Hello

This is my first post to the forum and I liked the original picture so I thought I would give it a shot. Basically, I used a lot of the suggestions already posted and went for a 'painted' look to solve the problem of the mottled skin. I hope you like it!

[Duv]

Here's a pretty good time saving idea. Run the image thru Neat Image. I sampled "her" left cheek and ignored that the area was too small.

Duv