Important pictures need help

[Fotomania]

Hi everyone,

Last summer we had a terrible tragedy in our family, my husbands 22 year old nephew Jacob was killed in a traffic accident. His closest family, his mother, father, twin brother and older brother were - and still are - devastated, but they asked me to take pictures at the funeral. I did so, and I can tell you it was a relief to hide behind a camera. But the day before my daughter and her friend had borrowed my camera and first after the funeral I noticed that they had put a huge fingerprint on the lens! So that fingerprint is on every picture and I have tried to do something about it in Photoshop. The burn tool helps a bit, but it's not enough. Could anyone please help me to do something about this picture, then maybe I can try to use the same technique on the other pictures. I include a small copy, if someone wants a large copy I can put a link to it. Nothing is done to the original picture except resizing and USM.
Thank you very much for your help,

Eva

 

[Harvey]

Eva,

I'm a fairly new Photoshop 5.5 user but I created two layers off of Show layers & then used the Marquee tool set to 5 & 6 dimensions to create ovals to encicle the thumbprints around the girl with the rainbow skirt on Layer 1 and then around the 3 people on the left on Layer 2. I set the Opacity in Layer 1 to 25% in Color Burn mode (left of Opacity on the layer menu), and than selected the Paint Bucket tool, clicked inside of the oval and the adjustment was made. For Layer 2, I set the Opacity to 15% to make the change. Flattened the image at the end.

Good luck...Harvey

Hi everyone,

Last summer we had a terrible tragedy in our family, my husbands 22
year old nephew Jacob was killed in a traffic accident. His closest
family, his mother, father, twin brother and older brother were -
and still are - devastated, but they asked me to take pictures at
the funeral. I did so, and I can tell you it was a relief to hide
behind a camera. But the day before my daughter and her friend had
borrowed my camera and first after the funeral I noticed that they
had put a huge fingerprint on the lens! So that fingerprint is on
every picture and I have tried to do something about it in
Photoshop. The burn tool helps a bit, but it's not enough. Could
anyone please help me to do something about this picture, then
maybe I can try to use the same technique on the other pictures. I
include a small copy, if someone wants a large copy I can put a
link to it. Nothing is done to the original picture except resizing
and USM.
Thank you very much for your help,

Eva

 

[Bernie I.]

Eva

I e-mailed you back your image with my quick corrections
took about 3 minutes. Of course you should spend more time on it than that.

Assuming you know how to use adjustment layers and to mask out the areas you don't want the correction to be applied, you can shift-drag each adjustment layer to the other images seeing that the smuge on the lens will affect every image in the same place.

You will proably have to tweek each image indepently but it's an efficent way to correct numerous images with the same problem.
Good Luck
any questions e-mail me. but I'll be gone for the weekend.
--Bernie I.

 

[clausiam]

Eva,
here is my attempt.



Process was like this:
1) Lasso out general area where fingerprint is apparent

2) In QMask mode Gaussian blur the selection by 12 and paint a bit of dark gray (to make it "less selected") on the dark coat of the woman in the front (see 3 below)
3) Make a levels adjustment layer of your selection.

4) On the new layer lower gamma to about 0.70, increase black and lower white sliders to improve contrast

5) Reselect the selection from 2, copy to a layer (Ctrl-J) between bg and adj layer.

6) Sharpen new layer a bit to compensate for blurring caused by fingerprint (USM and selectively using the sharpen tool where needed)
7) Adjust the opacity of layers and levels of adjustment layers if needed

Took about 10 minutes - good luck and my condolences to you and your family.
-- Claus

 

[Fotomania]

Thank you everyone for helping me with this important picture.

I have tried again to make it better, with magnet lasso (I think it's called), new layers (multiply), dodge burn, paint brush and rubber stamp. It took me almost 40 minutes and I think the result is acceptable. But still, 40 minutes with every picture, I think there are about 30 pictures who will need the same treatment.

When something like this happens in life, you wish you at least could come up with beautiful pictures.
Thanks again,

Eva

 

[Greg Evans]

Eva,

I am saddened by your loss.

Your corrections on this photo are nothing short of amazing. For someone new to Photoshop, you have exhibited a great amount of skill.

Greg

Thank you everyone for helping me with this important picture.
I have tried again to make it better, with magnet lasso (I think
it's called), new layers (multiply), dodge burn, paint brush and
rubber stamp. It took me almost 40 minutes and I think the result
is acceptable. But still, 40 minutes with every picture, I think
there are about 30 pictures who will need the same treatment.
When something like this happens in life, you wish you at least
could come up with beautiful pictures.
Thanks again,

Eva

 

[clausiam]

Eva Åström wrote:



Wow, photo restoration doesn't get better than this. You did an exceptional job with restoring it both wrt. sharpness and brightness. If you didn't know where to look for the fingerprint you would never know it was there to begin with. Even having seen the original I have to go to 200% view to spot a few places where it is visible (grassy spot to the left of the girls foot is a bit blurry still for example).-- Claus

 

[Fotomania]

Claus and Greg,

Thank you very much for your kind words, both on the tragedy that has struck our family and on my work on one of the pictures. I have used Photoshop since last June when I bought my first digital camera and I have learnt a lot from people like you and on the numerous sites on internet where people so generously share their knowledge of Photoshop. It has become my favourite hobby, apart from taking photos and I think it's wonderful to have an interest you can keep the rest of your life - and still have so much to learn. Usually my pictures don't need so much work in Photoshop, cropping, curves and USM is usually enough. But I think you learn much more with a picture like this.

Thanks again everyone who wanted to help me with this picture,

Eva