A client brought me the attached picture. I quoted a price to restore it from his online description but I did not see the photo prior to his bringing it to me. The photo is of a home coming queen and a lot of it has been eaten by mold. It was in a cheap frame and has gotten wet. The picture is stuck to the glass. Did I mention that the owner has also broken the glass in the frame and a piece of it is missing? Upon receiving the picture I cleaned the surface of the glass as well as I could. Since it is impossible to remove the picture from the glass without causing further damage I opted to scan the picture through the glass. I knew that the time necessary to restore the image would far exceed my quote so I suggested that I remove the subject from the background and place her on a different one. By doing this I was able to concentrate on the subject and not the background. I cleaned up the subject as best I could but found I could not reconstruct the pageant crown because it was eaten by mold. I suggested that I replace the crown with a royalty free one downloaded from the internet. This was acceptable to the client and I completed the job and sent a proof. The client was happy with the result but did not like the crown I chose. He suggested another and submitted a picture of a prom queen wearing a crown he liked. I found a crown that was similar, removed the first crown and replaced it with the second. I advised the client that this added more time to the restoration and billed him for the additional. The client was upset and asked me to remove the crown in an obvious attempt to save money, (even though the work was done) and just make the picture of the subject. I advised him I could do that but the job would not be as simply removing a hat because by removing the crown I would have to rebuild the subjects head where the crown was. Again an unhappy client. However, in order to make things more acceptable to him I discounted the project by 20%. That's my story now the advice I'm looking for is this. . . I obviously mishandled my quote. What would have been the best way to let the client know his many requests were exceeding the quote. He obviously thinks he can ask the restoration be "tweaked" and changed without having to incur a cost for the time spent in doing that for which he asks.
I was not happy with The final result, (with the rebuilt hair). I had a great deal of trouble making it look natural. I've tried the clone stamp which retains texture but it still looks too smooth. Advice is always appreciated.
I was not happy with The final result, (with the rebuilt hair). I had a great deal of trouble making it look natural. I've tried the clone stamp which retains texture but it still looks too smooth. Advice is always appreciated.