retouch advice

[cyberwasp]

A friend recently asked me to see if I could clean up the photo below. I first did spot healing for the major scratches and any tears. She also asked to extend the water to where the sky was apparently washed out and/or missing.After which I adjusted some skin tones on the kids forehead.

My only concern is the color noise in the skin tones. I tried the median filer which helped but I'm thinking there may be a better solution. any advice is appreciated. TIA

https://1drv.ms/i/s!AjZLOy6GbYksgaUHydIEaoe4UFF6dw

[klev]

Re: retouch advice

You can either use a mask with soft borders and adjustment layers, a clone stamp in color mode (if you're using a blank layer, set that to color mode), or some combination of the two. I think that would be the easiest approach.

[edbayani]

Re: retouch advice

Try duplicating the image and change blend mode to multiply and reduce opacity a bit. Merge layers and follow Klev's advice and select carefully. My preference is quick mask for selecting using sharp or soft brush and different opacities.

https://www.dropbox.com/home/ed%20photos/BEFORE%20AND%20AFTER?preview=retouch.jpg

[cyberwasp]

Re: retouch advice

Thank you Klev & edbayani. I will give both a try. Have never retouched a photo like this and am learning as I go.

[Tony W]

Re: retouch advice

...My only concern is the color noise in the skin tones. I tried the median filer which helped but I'm thinking there may be a better solution. any advice is appreciated. TIA

As I am sure you recognise the image is not particularly sharp to begin with.

I am assuming from a quick snapshot and also that the image you are working from is a scan of a smallish print.

Under the circumstances it should be hoped that your friends expectations are not too high.

FWIW some thoughts:

• Difficult to judge carefully as the original scan seems to have an unhealthy dose of JPEG artefacting.
• Image contrast is very poor in both original and retouched
• Kids hair (image left) retouch has missed the edges making head appear larger
• Noise may not be as bad/objectionable as you think!
  • IF the original scan in your link is full size then sending to print at 300 ppi will yield a print around 6"x4"
  • IF you are viewing your work at 100% zoom in PS then you are looking at an image that is approx a 3x magnification of a print - assuming that your monitor pixel count is around 100 ppi and you are going to print to Canon/HP or Fuji printer expecting 300 ppi
  
  

Attached main view section @ 100% view with PS Despeckle applied a couple of times. The inset section represents a truer size of the image when sent to print (NOTE: do not try and judge image sharpness from this)

[cyberwasp]

Re: retouch advice

[Tony. Thank you for confirming my suspicions. I feel I have done as much as possible to this photo except as you stated, contrast.

I just wanted to make sure . I've retouched photo before but this one bothered me and needed another retouchers' opinion

[klev]

Re: retouch advice

[Tony. Thank you for confirming my suspicions. I feel I have done as much as possible to this photo except as you stated, contrast.

I thought you were concerned about the big patchy cyan portions connecting sky and hair or similar details. Those are easily addressed. Really tiny stuff is harder, although I don't expect typical viewing distances to be too revealing. Some of that comes with scanning negatives, regardless of what you use to scan them.

[cyberwasp]

Re: retouch advice

I thought you were concerned about the big patchy cyan portions connecting sky and hair or similar details. Those are easily addressed. Really tiny stuff is harder, although I don't expect typical viewing distances to be too revealing. Some of that comes with scanning negatives, regardless of what you use to scan them.

Either my eyes are bad or I'm not seeing what you're referring too. maybe I need to run my colorimeter again.

[klev]

Re: retouch advice

Either my eyes are bad or I'm not seeing what you're referring too. maybe I need to run my colorimeter again.

I don't think you need to profile again. Wasn't this type of stuff your concern? It was the first thing I noticed. I thought that was your concern. Note the sharp cyan cast around the hair. This is from a screenshot of the original link.

[cyberwasp]

Re: retouch advice

I don't think you need to profile again. Wasn't this type of stuff your concern? It was the first thing I noticed. I thought that was your concern. Note the sharp cyan cast around the hair. This is from a screenshot of the original link.

I think you were referring to the water I placed behind her as the original was harder to tell what it was and my friend wanted it to fill the top portion of the image So I just replaced It and adjust the color to match the original as closely as possible. I believe in doing so I took care of the cyan cast around her hair.

I did tell her before I started that there's probably not much I can do to the sharpness due to the age and size of the photo hence I used a median filter set to 1 to smooth out the jpeg artifacts.