severe water damage

[Ross_Cooper]

Hi everyone
I could really use some advice on restoring a water damaged photo. This photo belongs to my mother and I would really like repair the damage as she has cancer now. My problem is as you can see from the picture very little good image data to use for repair.
I was considering replacing the small amount of good image data with bad image data and then using correction techniques for color, hue and saturation to bring the image back to life.
Any ideas on if this would work, or any options to assist in fixing the issues would be greatly appreciated.

Ross

[voidsource]

Re: severe water damage

I want to start off by saying sorry to hear that your mother has cancer. With that being said I personally think that you should not use hue/saturation on the water spots as it would give u different variations in tones as you work out the water spots. I would start by using 2 or more gradient maps that would unify the entire background itself. Your probably gonna use 2 different gradient maps, one for ur darker blues and one for your lighter blues. Mask out ur mother so that it doesnt affect her. Then mask in each gradient map sections of blues that u want to show/hide so that u have a variation like in your photo.

As far as cleaning the minor spots i would recommend using clone stamp tool. after your done with that you would probably have to use curves or levels something to bring back those faded colors back in. You might have to do it by sections; jacket, eyes, hair, etc... Oh and you might wanna try using at the very end a Dodge and burn layer ( ALT click on new layer; check box that says "fill in with 50% grey" or something along those lines; select in blend mode "overlay"; use dodge and burn tools to add darks and lights into image ) but only after everything else has been set. GL and I hope this helps outs some bit.

[Ross_Cooper]

Re: severe water damage

Thanks voidsource, I was thinking of removing the backdrop completely from the photo as this would allow me to concentrate solely on repairing the main focal point of the image. Then I could layer the young lady onto a new background. But the information is really helpful and I appreciate your reply and your sentiments.

[voidsource]

Re: severe water damage

well a good tip for masking out ur mother is to use "color range" in the select section and then select all the blue. since blue is the primary colour in the background then adjust the fuzziness and then that way it would seem the easiest way to mask out your mother. I think that would seem ideal.

[Cameraken]

Re: severe water damage

Hi Ross

I was considering replacing the small amount of good image data with bad image data and then using correction techniques for color, hue and saturation to bring the image back to life.
Any ideas on if this would work,
Ross

Don’t do this it would make it worse!


Here is my attempt.
I repaired the luminosity first (from the Green Channel)
Once I had a decent B&W I then added the colour back. I didn’t really touch the background (just blurred it) but it doesn’t look to bad.

Just ask if you need any settings.

Regards

Ken

[PastBCPresent]

Re: severe water damage

Ross,

First I too would like to offer my sympathies and support for you and your mother. It will be a tough fight but both of you can get through this. I have been in your shoes so if you need someone to talk to hit me up anytime.

As far as the picture is concerned you have gotten some good advise from Void, and Cameraken did lovely work on the image. I have recently been restoring images that were damaged in hurricane Sandy here in the US so I have seen images like this. I will define the workflow that I tend to find successful.

1. My very first step is to repair all the damage that I can with clone stamp and healing brushes. This is extremely tedious and time consuming but the effort spent here as a foundation will lead to a great result.

2. Next I use selective masking to adjust curves, levels, and or selective color to normalize all the different color/level variations to a uniform level.

3. After the image is repaired and normalized, then I would use curves and hue/saturation to brighten or darken depending on the outcome of step 2 and enrich the colors.

I hope this helps. If you find yourself overwhelmed by this project, feel free to contact me directly.

Sincerely,
Richard

[PastBCPresent]

Re: severe water damage

Oh sorry, I forgot to mention that when making adjustments I would be sure to used Adjustment Layers so that if I did something I didn't like I could easily undo or toggle off. Also compounding adjustment layers suchs as curves, I wouldn't try to fix the entire image in one go until step 3, I would take bites out of it.

[Ross_Cooper]

Re: severe water damage

I just want to say thank you to everyone for your sympathies. Also all of the information you have provided has been invaluable. I know I am only a newbie, but you people have sure made me feel welcome and not feel stupid.
My deepest thanks to all here and the help you have all given and greatly enhanced my knowledge of photo restoration.

Sincerely,
Ross

[Ross_Cooper]

Re: severe water damage

Hi to everyone again, feel really bad asking for more assistance. But here is my problem, I have edited my original image and been able to remove a great deal of the damage. But now the image appears overexposed. Any suggestions on how to correct this?
I have attached the edit to display the problem.
Still have work to do on the jumper and some cloning and healing to do on face.

Ross Cooper

[Cameraken]

Re: severe water damage

Hi Ross

Great job on removing the marks and stains from her face

As you say, these adjustments have started to loose detail, which you really want to try to avoid. This is the reason why I started my repairs for the photo in Post 5 above with the green channel and repaired the luminosity first.

If you wish to get the detail back from your picture without starting again you could try this.
Open your photograph and copy the blue channel.
Paste it in a layer above your picture and set blending mode to Luminosity then add a hide all (black) mask
Use a soft white brush at low opacity to paint back the details that are being lost.

I also added a levels adjustment layer and adjusted the midtones only.
Red 1.00
Green 0.56
Blue 0.58

My picture below shows your picture after these changes and also shows my layers pallet.

Hope this helps

feel really bad asking for more assistance

This is a learning site and questions are encouraged, It’s good to see you attempting this photo. Water damaged pictures are never easy. So don’t feel bad, just ask again if you need any further help.

Regards

Ken

[chillin]

Re: severe water damage

I think you have to throw at it all retouching skills, especially curves & frequency separation.

[rharris]

Re: severe water damage

My version wound up being way over-processed in the end. I threw everything I had at it. Coloring in Overlay mode did most of the heavy lifting as far as correcting the water stain. I used spot healing, Frequency Separation, Inverse High Pass, Soft light D&B, multiple Curves layers, Dust and scratches, painting in color mode, texture, small dose of Oil Paint Filter, etc., etc.

Ronny

http://www.pbase.com/image/149912684/original.jpg