I thought there was no hope...

[lglogan]

This photo was taken in 1999 with one of the first digital cameras on the market. Taken under fluorescent lights it is yellow and there is not a lot of detail. I have worked on this project each time I learned something new that might help it. You can't tell in this small version, but the edges are all jagged. This is a very important photo because it is the last photo of all of my sisters and myself.

http://www.pbase.com/image/1008514

Lynda

[lglogan]

This is the retouched photo. Thanks to Vikki I was finally able to repair it. I used her Sepia Tutorial. Thanks, again Vikki.

http://www.pbase.com/image/1008515

Smiles,
Lynda

[Vikki]

I'm so glad this worked for you. I like it. Your rework really is much better on the jaggies.
Sometimes getting rid of the color, even if it does turn out good, puts more focus on the subject too.
Vikki

[CJ Swartz]

Lynda - your latest version really helped!

I was curious as to what could be done with your image also, and wondered how much the history brush could help with the jaggies - perhaps you've already used it? While looking at the photos in question, I also looked around at some of your other images and wondered if you might like to relocate your family out of the kitchen into some of the lovely locations you've photographed.

Here's one version where I also added some of the history brush after using the dust & scratches filter to smooth out some of the jaggies. Hope you don't mind my moving your family around without their permission?

[lglogan]

CJ,

That is awesome. Okay my first question is what did you do to correct the color? That was one of my biggest problems. You made the color look natural. Correcting color is not one of my strong points - yet!!!

[CJ Swartz]

"what did you do to correct the color? "

I didn't (at least not yet - I need time to do that -- it's hard for me too when there are skin tones involved). I desaturated and just painted on some color on a separate layer and then lowered opacity to make it look more realistic. I think you'd have to select several of your relatives separately to adjust the color casts since there appear to be different casts on different faces.

I love your images of Korea, as well as the cats.

[Sam]

Hi Lynda,

When I saw your original photo - I thought "Aha, now HERE's a challenge"!! So I've had a go at improving it, using a lot of blurring and stuff, as described here:

Copied green channel (which seemed to be the best in terms of tonal information) to a new layer & faded to around 40%, blended with duplicate original layer.

Copied the green channel again and this time applied a gaussian blur of 0.6 pixels. Put that layer below the main layer and faded to 73%. On the main (now upper) layer, used a blending mode of "color". Merged those two layers.

Tried to improve the color by using levels:-

Red - Input Levels: 0, 0.86, 231
Green - Input Levels: 0, 1.14, 243
Blue - Input Levels: 0, 0.96, 245

Tried using Color Balance to improve matters, but I just couldn't get a happy result.

To try and further remove the jaggies, I duplicated the photo, applied Smart Blur (Radius: 3, Threshold: 22.7, Quality: Low, Mode: Normal), then lowered the opacity to 48% and merged.

The red & blue channels looked the jaggiest, so put a 0.6 pixel gaussian blur over each of those. Then copied the red channel, pasted it under the main layer, and reduced the opacity of the main layer to 71% (as I did earlier). Now the jagginess was improved, but the colour was washed out, so altered Hue/Saturation/Lightness by -10, +26, 0.

Duplicated layer, applied a High Pass filter (0.9) and faded opacity to 59% on Overlay blend mode - this was to try and sharpen the image a bit. Merged.

The little girl's face was distinctly blue at this stage, so I copied her face to a new layer and altered Hue/Saturation by 31 & 29 and reduced the opacity of that layer to 74%.

Added some colour to the clothes and skin on new layers using airbrush set to a low pressure, opacity turned way down and blend mode set to "color". Merged all layers.

I wanted to get my teeth into this because so often a precious photo like this one is just plain awful in terms of quality and wanted to know whether there was anything one could do to improve matters. Having tried it, I now believe there is!

Cheers!

Sam

[lglogan]

Sam, WOW!!! You did a great job and thanks for posting each step. I will take these steps and try to correct another photo taken at the same time. Doing it myself using your steps will help me understand exactly what you did. Only one question. What is a High Pass filter?

Smiles,
Lynda

[lglogan]

CJ, the reason I asked about the color is because you hit the nail on the head with our hair color. You wouldn't believe how close you came.

Smiles,
Lynda

[Sam]

In PhotoShop, the High Pass filter is under Filter, Other. But I don't know what the equivalent is in other programmes. I was also hoping to find a proper definition of it in the Help index, but alas, it's not there! Perhaps someone else can explain its exact function.

[DJ Dubovsky]

Emboss will also work the same way high pass does to sharpen an image.

Sam
That really turned out great and you did a good job of documenting it.
DJ

[CJ Swartz]

Sam - fantastic job! I'm going to follow your steps also. Often, we don't realize at the time that a photo is taken that it will be a "very special photo", and so they often aren't the ones that have the advantages of prior planning for lighting etc. You've done a wonderful job of recreating the moment, I think. I saw this as a challenge worth doing, and you've met the challenge.

Lynda -- the reason the color is like yours, is because I used the eyedropper to measure your hair in the image with the Korea landmark bears -- but I still had to lower the opacity to make it match better.

[lglogan]

Sam,

Thanks. I have PS6 and am learning. I had looked for the High Pass filter and must have over looked it. Thanks for the info.

Smiles,
Lynda

[greg]

Whats a high pass filter?

[DJ Dubovsky]

Hi Greg
If you are using Photoshop you will locate the high pass filter in the Filters > Other > high pass.
You actually apply the high pass to a duplicate layer of what you want to sharpen and adjust it so that you can just see the outlines of the image but not too much of the real details. Then you change the blending mode of that layer to overlay and it should sharpen it. I like it better than using the unsharp mask filter.
DJ