Godmother & others....Help

[Aladdin]

I have hard time fixing this image, I went through a lot of tutorials specially the great DVD by Godmother. Still, if I fix one part, the other breaks, I don't want any one to do it for me, I just want to know how to "attack" the issues.

Here is a list of the issues I am having as you can see:
- The area between 3,2 & 4 is overall light while the area 4,5 & 1 is slightly darker. Should all the body be same color (uniform) or it is "OK" to have it this way.

- should I use Godmother's technique of fixing the band (3) or should I use clone?

- same issue with red band (4)

- area (2) is light with red streaks in it

- area (5) has white/light spot (to the right of 5

I know how to fix 4,2 & 5 - problem is, the surrounding areas got problems too and no clean source available.

- area (1), this is a real problem area, slightly darker, reddish and a lot of blue lines, very hard to do any repair there, very frustrating, I attempted the blur/apply method (hi/low) but there is no good "source" area to pick from. I used selective color, hue/sat and all the tricks, too many colors in this area special the blue tint (I think it is blood vessels).

I mean, as if it is not enough to have skin issues, I also have color variations through out. Any ideas as how to proceed?

Is this an easy image to fix or I am just not lucky and got myself into a mess?

[gene_spark]

Re: Godmother & others....Help

I did it the easy way it took me around 5 minutes:

I used spacial frequency seperation:

Healingstamp on the HF Layer..

then i uses a Copy of the Background Layer put it over the Lp Layer and blurred ist a lot with the median Filter for the color issues and mask it then i picked a skin Color i like put this on a layer in Color mode round 30 % to even out the skincolors and on top a Curve Layer to Colorcorrekt....

[Aladdin]

Re: Godmother & others....Help

Thanks Gene for the effort.

What is the Lp layer?
Did you pick the color off the duplicate layer after applying the median filter? was this the only use of this duplicate layer? I would assume the layer was discarded afterword.
Was it easy for you to find "source" for the healing stamp. I like the outcome but I am a bit confused with the steps following the frequency separation/healing brush (this part I know how to do).

[gene_spark]

Re: Godmother & others....Help

Hi Aladdin

LP stand for low pass Layer.

The median Filter was the first Step to even out the Skintones..

yes it was very easy to find the source..but i think it has to do with the Low res of the attached File...i would think in the original it was a bit harder....

From Bottom to top

1. The unaltered Backgroud Layer
2. The Low Pass..with around 5 Pix Gauss
3. The media Filter with around30 Pix Paintig on the mask only to even out the Skintones
4. A Layer with a solid Color in Color Mode 30% to even out the skin tones even more
5. The High Frequency Layer
6. A Curve Adjustment in Color mode

lg.
Gene

and now we have to Party after that 4:0 against Argentinia....:-))

[Aladdin]

Re: Godmother & others....Help

Thank you Gene so much.

Yes, the original 16 bit image is nightmare, may be we should add "Save for Web and Devices" as a step. Heh, Just kidding.

Regarding step #5, there are two ways out there to do the HF layer, One way is to use the high-pass filter while the other is to use Apply Image. Which one do you recommend.

Also, do I need to merge the lower layers (under #5) before I hit the HF layer?

Sorry if I am asking way too many questions.
Thank you so much for help.


...Don't get on the wrong side of Godmother! I know, 4:0 hurts, but, let us not remind her.

[gene_spark]

Re: Godmother & others....Help

Ok, as Goodmother would say,,Highpass sucks....:-)))
and so i would also recommend the Apply Image Version...

No you dont have to merge the Layers...The first Thing you have to to ist the seperation..

You have the Nr. 1 the Backgroun, Nr. 2 The Low pass and Nr5 The high Pass Layer..than copy the Background Layer over the Low pass to get Layer nr. 3. and run The Median...you schould temporary switch off the Highpass Layer so you can see better whats going on and mask....

@ Goodmother: Thanks for that Tip with the Frequencysep...for me and im only a Photographer..not a Retoucher..it saves me Tons of Time: Thank you!



lg.
Gene

[Aladdin]

Re: Godmother & others....Help

ok, I spent like 3 hours on it -looks like I am missing something, this is not 5 minutes job, at least to me-. Any way, still, got "patches" of color, some reddish, blue. Will try again.

I just can't get it uniform, color wise like your sample. I will attempt different approach.

By the way, are you creating the median & color layers before you actually use the Healing brush or after (I know that the median & color are sandwiched between the LO/HI layers. Looks like something wrong with my Beer may be it is not cold enough.

[gene_spark]

Re: Godmother & others....Help

Hmmm..

on the low res first i did the medean Thing and than the healing...but i think when you do it the otherway it doesn´t make a big difference...

It sound to me that the high Res, version is a lot trickier than the low res...

may be my approach doesnt work..

Now im very curious und interested to look at your original high res ...and play around...if you like send it to me.....

lg.
Gene

[DJSoulglo]

Re: Godmother & others....Help

Get out the quick mask tool, select (brush set too 100% opacity, about 3-10 flow) the blue patches, add a curve for those. Then do the same thing for the red patches. Then repeat and repeat until you get a uniform result. It's not hard, but it is hard work.