Advice please

[Mesme]

Hello, I'm new here, and an advanced amateur CS5 user. You can see the photo I'm trying to restore has pretty severe damage.

I'm not looking for someone to do this for me, however, advice on how to do it would be great!

Several points of concern for me are below.

1. Reconstructing the bricks.
2. Bringing detail back to the areas under the tape lines.
3. Getting good skin to look correct, especially in the chin area where data has been destroyed completely.
4. How to make the bow look correct without looking like a silly painted on item.

Any advice, or assistance will be hugely appreciated.

Thanks
Todd

[crazyfly1]

Re: Advice please

Hi Mesme, welcome!

Wow, you've got your work cut out for you. I'm hoping that you have access to the original photo and can take several scans of it and maybe merge them to one photo to give yourself a better starting point.
That's what I did was to look for a good starting point. I duplicated the layer and switched to multiply blend mode. If you merge the layers and look at the histogram you'll see that this clips the darks in the bushes, add a mask and bring a little lightness back there. Then I added a second layer with the blend set to multiply and masked out the effect in the entire background and lowered the opacity with an eye on the face.

From there I'd start to work on the face, zoomed way in, with the patch tool or clone stamp tool. When you've finished the face and dress, if you can still see and haven't taken an ax to your computer start on the background. If there is an easier or quicker way, I don't know it. Another way would be finding or taking a picture of a brick wall and some bushes and replacing the background. That or a lot of hard work is all I can think of.

Good luck with this. Would be nice if you post your progress as you go. I'm interested to see what you come up with.

[crazyfly1]

Re: Advice please

I took it a little further. Cleaned the face with the patch tool. Jumped both eyes to new layers and flipped them to replace the damaged parts of the opposite eye. Got one leg ready to jump and flip to replace the other leg. I ran a strong dust and scratches filter on a new layer and masked the layer out. Then started painting the effect back in over the scratches in the background. Not perfect but...

[Mesme]

Re: Advice please

Wow, that's looking great! I have to warn though not to spend too much time working on that picture. It's so small in file size that I cannot use it for print! Perhaps I should have stated that beforehand. I just "assumed", being that the max file size requirement on this site is so small, that it was just a given. I apologize for that.

I do appreciate though that I can apply the advice, and techniques you're using to the original.

[0lBaldy]

Re: Advice please

Wow, that's looking great! I have to warn though not to spend too much time working on that picture. It's so small in file size that I cannot use it for print! Perhaps I should have stated that beforehand. I just "assumed", being that the max file size requirement on this site is so small, that it was just a given. I apologize for that.

I do appreciate though that I can apply the advice, and techniques you're using to the original.

Welcome to RetouchPRO
Hope you enjoy your stay here and make lots of friends.
Poke around, have fun!

As Crazyfly1 said, "I'm hoping that you have access to the original photo and can take several scans of it and maybe merge them to one photo to give yourself a better starting point." If you do... this thread may help.. "Scanners, textures, scratches, cracks, silvering"

If you use Photoshop you can post fairly large pictures which are under 100k using the 'save for web' function in Photoshop as described here:
Size, Quality and/or Format your Attached Images.. (Click here)

Also, to present/post a larger picture with a resolution that is over 100K then you can host your image elsewhere and attach a link in the thread. but also please attach an under 100K version, as you did here, so the thread remains useful in the future, regardless of external links.

Other Hosts if you do not have your own site:
ImageVenue.com (3Meg max, free).. pixentral.com (2Meg max, free).. photobucket.com (1 Meg max free, 5 Meg PRO).. mediafire.com (100 Meg per file, free).. minus.com (200 Meg per file free)... dropbox.com/tour (2GIG, free)....
(post a link to the highest resolution.. or the largest size you can upload)

(YouSendIt, RapidShare and some other sites (As a FREE User) have time limits (30 days) or restrictions if the files are not accessed within a certain time limit and the links die or the files are deleted..)