My Greatest Effort...

efg40 · Aug 24, 2004

Hello all. My mother gave me a photo to work on, of her mother and her family. (My Grandmother is the one with the cross.) No one in the picture is alive now. I did the best I know how to do with PSP. I'm pretty happy with it, except I just could not really fix the children on the left and their white clothes. I tried a zillion things. Is it tolerable? Any ideas?

What I WAS able to do is a direct result of all the time spent at this forum. I am learning every day. I rely heavily on the artistry, helpfulness, and variety here!!!!!

I would appreciate comments! (Positive only) (Just kidding.) (Sort of

)
If they look too sharp, they are for print and look right in person anyway.

Original: (A 1922 2.5 x 4" photo, already enhanced by the scanner))

My best attempt: (printed an 8x10)

A 5x7 copy for family members to remind us who is who:

And a colorized version, printed 8x10 also:

--
Elizabeth
efg40
FZ1-2er

Bob Quinn · Aug 24, 2004

efg40 said:
Hello all. My mother gave me a photo to work on, of her mother and
her family. (My Grandmother is the one with the cross.) No one in
the picture is alive now. I did the best I know how to do with PSP.
I'm pretty happy with it, except I just could not really fix the
children on the left and their white clothes. I tried a zillion
things. Is it tolerable? Any ideas?

What I WAS able to do is a direct result of all the time spent at
this forum. I am learning every day. I rely heavily on the
artistry, helpfulness, and variety here!!!!!

I would appreciate comments! (Positive only) (Just kidding.)
(Sort of )
If they look too sharp, they are for print and look right in person
anyway.

Original: (A 1922 2.5 x 4" photo, already enhanced by the scanner))

My best attempt: (printed an 8x10)

A 5x7 copy for family members to remind us who is who:

And a colorized version, printed 8x10 also:

--
Elizabeth
efg40
FZ1-2er

GCam · Aug 24, 2004

You might try looking at the channels to see if there is more detail in one channel, then do an apply image from that channel to one with less detail. You might try a contrast mask on the dresses-dupe layer first-and if that brings out dress detail-use a layer mask to paint back the rest of the picture, then proceed with the editing. gc

Mark Pav · Aug 24, 2004

efg40, you've done very well. And there was obviously quite a lot of work involved. For the blown-out clothing, I would suggest begging and borring from other peoples' clothes. Not only from those in the photo, but from any other photos you might have or can find online. Copy and paste, copy and paste, and bit by bit you'll be able to build them up. If it's worth the trouble to you.

Eric_17 · Aug 24, 2004

That boy in the girl's dress at the bottom-left looks pretty uncomfortable.

Very good touch-up. Seems to be a bit of a soft-focus on the bottom-left. Perhaps a wide-radius USM on just that area would clear that up.

Eric_17 · Aug 24, 2004

I wanted to add this: I kind of like the original framing, how there's lots of sky and lots of ground. It denotes wide open spaces in which the family was photographed. Your close crop, although technically just fine and probably more standard, leaves me wanting for the view I had in the original.

Tom Bennett · Aug 24, 2004

A very nice job on every version

efg40 said:
Hello all. My mother gave me a photo to work on, of her mother and
her family. (My Grandmother is the one with the cross.) No one in
the picture is alive now. I did the best I know how to do with PSP.
I'm pretty happy with it, except I just could not really fix the
children on the left and their white clothes. I tried a zillion
things. Is it tolerable? Any ideas?

What I WAS able to do is a direct result of all the time spent at
this forum. I am learning every day. I rely heavily on the
artistry, helpfulness, and variety here!!!!!

I would appreciate comments! (Positive only) (Just kidding.)
(Sort of )
If they look too sharp, they are for print and look right in person
anyway.

Original: (A 1922 2.5 x 4" photo, already enhanced by the scanner))

My best attempt: (printed an 8x10)

A 5x7 copy for family members to remind us who is who:

And a colorized version, printed 8x10 also:

--
Elizabeth
efg40
FZ1-2er

efg40 · Aug 24, 2004

Elizabeth
efg40
FZ1-2er

efg40 · Aug 24, 2004

Thanks for your suggestions GCam. I did try channels but there was nothing better in any of them. And contrast masking and all other techniques I tried usually made it look more dark but fakey. Id rather have it blown out like the original than fakey I guess. Thanks for the help!

Elizabeth

efg40 · Aug 24, 2004

Mark Pav said:
efg40, you've done very well. And there was obviously quite a lot
of work involved. For the blown-out clothing, I would suggest
begging and borring from other peoples' clothes. Not only from
those in the photo, but from any other photos you might have or can
find online. Copy and paste, copy and paste, and bit by bit you'll
be able to build them up. If it's worth the trouble to you.

Thanks Mark! I wondered about borrowing clothes. If I had something handy I would have at least tried it. But couldn't find anything. Maybe eventually I will. The boy would be very difficult for me though!

Elizabeth
efg40
FZ1-2er

efg40 · Aug 24, 2004

Eric_17 said:
I wanted to add this: I kind of like the original framing, how
there's lots of sky and lots of ground. It denotes wide open
spaces in which the family was photographed. Your close crop,
although technically just fine and probably more standard, leaves
me wanting for the view I had in the original.

Thanks Eric. You're right in your first post about the softness on the lower left. I could probably improve that more.

As far as cropping, I too like the original, especially since I spent time coloring the Georgia red dirt in the foreground and lots of time on the upper trees. But then I realized I had to crop for an 8x10 from a 2.5x4 sized original!
--
Elizabeth
efg40
FZ1-2er

GCam · Aug 24, 2004

Elizabeth: I did try a dupe layer with multiply blending, and it helped somehwat. You can layer mask and erase what you do not like. gc

efg40 · Aug 24, 2004

Tom Bennett said:
A very nice job on every version

Very much appreciate your comment Tom! I am anxious to please my Mama!

Elizabeth
efg40
FZ1-2er

efg40 · Aug 24, 2004

GCam said:
Elizabeth: I did try a dupe layer with multiply blending, and it
helped somehwat. You can layer mask and erase what you do not
like. gc

Thanks GCam. I will give it a try.
--
Elizabeth
efg40
FZ1-2er

cspringer · Aug 24, 2004

make a Selective Color adjustment layer and go to White/absolute and add a little black until you like the tone of the childrens' clothes on the left. Erase the rest. You can add a dodge layer on the clothes to bring out a little detail.

make another Selective Color adjustment layer and go to White/absolute and add cyan and magenta to the sky. Erase the rest.

play with the opacity levels.

efg40 said:
Tom Bennett said:

A very nice job on every version

Click to expand...

Very much appreciate your comment Tom! I am anxious to please my Mama!

Elizabeth
efg40
FZ1-2er

cspringer · Aug 24, 2004

I like old photos with a color cast but this is just to show you what it might look like without...then you could tone it with another filter. Part of this fix was posted the other day (from D.Juan)and I added a couple of settings at the end that work pretty good. I recommend making an action. You can do the same thing with Photo Filter adjustment layer but this is easier. I like what this action does to skin tones.

1.duplicate background layer
2.Filter/Blur/Average
3.Ctrl+I (invert)
4.Set to Color Mode/50%
5.Add Hue/Saturation adjustment layer and set saturation to 50%.

cspringer said:
make a Selective Color adjustment layer and go to White/absolute
and add a little black until you like the tone of the childrens'
clothes on the left. Erase the rest. You can add a dodge layer on
the clothes to bring out a little detail.

make another Selective Color adjustment layer and go to
White/absolute and add cyan and magenta to the sky. Erase the rest.

play with the opacity levels.

efg40 said:

Tom Bennett said:

A very nice job on every version

Click to expand...

Very much appreciate your comment Tom! I am anxious to please my Mama!

Elizabeth
efg40
FZ1-2er

Click to expand...

efg40 · Aug 24, 2004

Thanks for the attempts! I think your clothes correction does look alittle better. Less "glowing", which was bugging me. And the color tints are interesting. Thanks for the different take.

Elizabeth
efg40
FZ1-2er

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