Thoughts about this Restoration Piece

[Matt Elder]

G'day Everyone,

long time no post so I thought I would get things started with this (usual deal, work sucking up too much time but it's all good). This is something I've been working on for the last couple of days and just interested in thoughts and comments. I'm a bit 'close' to it and know some areas that could use a little more work but just wanting to see if it is that obvious to others. Cheers.

Before

http://www.mattelder.com/images/Pict...quiaBefore.jpg

After

http://www.mattelder.com/images/Pict...squiaAfter.jpg

[Doug Nelson]

Hard to tell, they're so tiny. But it looks really good. Some residual spots, esp. in the curtain area and on the older guy's pants (he looks awfully pleased for having a gun to his head).

Was this an authentic old pic, or one of those theme-park costume shots? The kid with the rifle looks about 10. (come to think of it, his head doesn't really match, maybe a graft?)

[CJ Swartz]

The spots on the curtains are still noticeable to me - on top and on the left side.

Nice image - someone will be happy when you're done.

[jeaniesa]

I'm with CJ - I notice the spots on the left curtains and the spots/discoloration on the top of the curtains. Other than that, it's a little hard to pick out details in the dark areas, but that could be my monitor or the small size of the photos.

Good job! -Jeanie

[Matt Elder]

Thanks everyone for the comments and sorry I didn't get back to people earlier. This was one of those jobs that as I went through the job, I changed what I wanted to do with the image. Originally I just wanted to quickly play with techniques and get the bulk of the work done. As I was working on it, I was spending more and more time on it and refining later sections better than the first couple of sections.

Doug - the curtains were done first and subsequently worse of the whole image. What makes you think it is one of those 'theme-park' photos? That isn't actually a head graft but the original head. Again a really bad photo to begin with.

CJ Swartz - as per Doug's comment, curtains done first and yep, suck realitive to the rest of the image.

jeaniesa - unfortunately my monitor isn't the greatest when it comes to dark colours. I always notice when I print stuff out, what I thought was black is actually a shade of brown or something. I've tried gamma corrections and colour management with little success so a new monitor isn't too far away.

I was mainly seeing if people could pick the fault with the curtain which seems pretty obvious. Thanks guys.

[Doug Nelson]

Even on the original the kid's head just looks the wrong age for that body.

Please do us a favor and post them as attachments so they can be seen and learned from as long as this forum is around.