How to Cheat in Photoshop

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Posted on 04/08/04 4:59:14 PM

raymardo
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Help me fix this crappy picture to surprise my sick mother...

O.K. I feel guilty already. She's not really sick. Well, unless a dysfunctional family qualifies as sick... (LOL)

Anyway, My parents presented me with the challenge of restoring this photo. It is horribly grainy all over, faded, and my mother hates her eyes in it.

Is there any to save it?

I would to like to make it look like a perfectly photographed picture. I know that's a challenge, but hey, it seems like you guys and gals like challenges.

This is my first post. I look forward to participating.

raymardo

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Posted on 04/08/04 5:01:17 PM

raymardo
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Re: Help me fix this crappy picture to surprise my sick mother...

I would like to post a better quality photo if anybody would like to have a go at it. Where would I post the high res photo? I'm not quite sure. On my webspace perhaps...

raymardo

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Posted on 04/08/04 5:23:08 PM

trinityofone
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Re: Help me fix this crappy picture to surprise my sick mother...

Ray,

The real purpose of this forum is to give help with montages people have created, rather than restoration. Saying that, if someone wants to give it a try, it's all good practice, after all.

It would certainly be best to post a hires image on your webspace and put a link to it on the forum .

Personally, I haven't done much in the way of restoration - although I could give it a try

Ryan would probably be your best bet, although he's not around much.

Hope this helps.

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Posted on 04/08/04 5:38:24 PM

joshspazjosh
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Re: Help me fix this crappy picture to surprise my sick mother...

It's amazing how much Auto Levels and Auto Contrast can do...

I'm not done, but it's something for others to work from.

-Josh

Posted on 04/08/04 5:59:11 PM

raymardocs
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Re: Help me fix this crappy picture to surprise my sick mother...

Hello,

Thanks for the initial response.

David, I didn't notice any reference in the description of this forum to the exclusive limitation to montages. Though, as I said, this is my first post. If I violated any rules of the forum, I apologize.

I thought this would be a credible and good post since simailar issues were covered in Steve's book.

There is a tutorial of a slightly out of focus man pgotographed from behind where STeve shows how to use the unsharp mask, duplicate the layer, unsaturate the dup. send it to the top, desaturate it, apply a transfer mode like soft light and correct further from the with anoter unsharp mask or brightnedd and contrast...

This appeared to be an exercise along those lines.

Also, I've gone through many of the posts in other forums on this site and have seen your work. You are very talented. Keep at it.

Josh, thanks for your response. I have worked on this photo and achieved similar results with the levels also. Even on that crappy low res picture, it's amazing how much better it looks from the quick tweaks you gave it.

I've got to back to my parents to get the original photo. I accidentally saved over it with this low res version. I will post it if anyone wants to have a go at the real challenge which is correcting the garaininess and the awful eyes on my otherwise beautiful mother.

Posted on 04/08/04 7:23:23 PM

trinityofone
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Re: Help me fix this crappy picture to surprise my sick mother...

Ray,

Sorry if my post came across as stand-offish, it wasn't meant to. I should have worded it slightly better.

I agree that HTCIPS deals with a lot of image enhancement techniques and they could quite readily be used for restoration. There are, however, a lot of sites that are better suited to this type of image work.

David

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Posted on 04/08/04 8:17:10 PM

maiden
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Re: Help me fix this crappy picture to surprise my sick mother...

Well here's my effort - retouching is an art form in it's own right and if it was easy I suppose everybody would be doing it.

As you can see I have improved it but it requires a lot of love and attention to bring it back to a decent quality. A simple trick to improve washed out photos like this is to add a Threshold adjustment layer and move the slider as far over to the left until you see only a few specs of black and then using the Color Sampler Tool place a point on one the specs of black - This will be the black point of the picture. Then move the slider on the Thresholds layer as far over to the right until there is only small clumps of white - set other point sampler: this is the white point of the photograph.

Disable the Threshold layer by clicking on it's eye icon to make it invisible (or just delete the layer) and add a Curves adjustment layer.

Using the black eyedropper in the Curves dialogue box click the first color sampler point, then using the white eyedropper click the second color sampler point. By doing this you should have restored the photograph to a much improved level of contrast and brightness - then it's just getting busy with the clone brush and healing brush.

Posted on 06/08/04 3:30:21 PM

raymardocs
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Re: Help me fix this crappy picture to surprise my sick mother...

Thanks to all who have responded and helped.

Maiden, I'm going to try and follow what you have described. I hope you don't mind if I get stuck and ask you to clarify. Is that what you did to achieve your results above?

Thanks again, everyone.

Posted on 16/08/04 1:20:50 PM

Steve Caplin
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Re: Help me fix this crappy picture to surprise my sick mother...

It never fails to amaze me how much detail can be recovered from a faded photograph. Looking at the original, you'd think there was almost nothing there to work with - and yet all the detail and tonal information can still be retrieved.

David, I think there's room for a discussion of restoration here as well as montage. If a reader of the book has a Photoshop problem, then we shouldn't dismiss it!

Posted on 16/08/04 1:27:35 PM

trinityofone
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Re: Help me fix this crappy picture to surprise my sick mother...

It wasn't so much a dismissal, more of a referal.

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Posted on 19/08/04 1:21:35 PM

Jennifer Beadle
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Re: Help me fix this crappy picture to surprise my sick mother...

Here is my contribution, so far.

Posted on 19/08/04 1:58:22 PM

Steve Caplin
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Re: Help me fix this crappy picture to surprise my sick mother...

Nice going, Jennifer! Raymardo, you really need to post a link to a high res copy of the file so readers can work on it.

Posted on 26/08/04 00:54:28 AM

Hank
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Re: Help me fix this crappy picture to surprise my sick mother...

Ray:

Here are the fruits of some of my modest efforts. Still somewhat grainy, but if the picture is reduced to a given point you get a better overall "blend". As you know, when you "sharpen" - regardless of the program used - one tends to get grainyness - or "over focus" in trade off. Therefore, you have to strike some happy medium. In achieving some acceptable pennacle of overall results, the picture needs to be "disected" (i.e. background from subjects, .et al) and various procedures applied to them seperately. (Some trial and error is acceptable here.)Subsequently, the picture can be reassembled for better results. Gotta LOVE it! I would have pursued further for you, but my time is somewhat short at this point and my stomach "growls" for food.

Best of luck. Later,

Hank

p.s There is absolutely nothing wrong with your mother's eyes! They are lovely and you may tell her I said she make a great photographic subject - good picture or not.

Posted on 18/10/04 1:12:49 PM

lovedoctor 101
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Re: Help me fix this crappy picture to surprise my sick mother...

oo nice going guys super dooper luvvys.

Posted on 13/11/04 10:56:19 PM

Atomicfog
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Re: Help me fix this crappy picture to surprise my sick mother...

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Posted on 22/11/04 6:34:27 PM

kirat
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Help me fix this crappy picture to surprise my sick mother...

I am just a wanna be.I m just a self taught photoshop enthuasiast.SO here is myversion.

At 4:59:14 PM 04/08/04, raymardo wrote:
O.K. I feel guilty already. She's not really sick. Well, unless a dysfunctional family qualifies as sick... (LOL)

Anyway, My parents presented me with the challenge of restoring this photo. It is horribly grainy all over, faded, and my mother hates her eyes in it.

Is there any to save it?

I would to like to make it look like a perfectly photographed picture. I know that's a challenge, but hey, it seems like you guys and gals like challenges.

This is my first post. I look forward to participating.

raymardo

Posted on 22/11/04 6:42:10 PM

nep
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Help me fix this crappy picture to surprise my sick mother...

At 6:34:27 PM 22/11/04, kirat wrote:
I am just a wanna be.I m just a self taught photoshop enthuasiast.SO here is myversion.

> At 4:59:14 PM 04/08/04, raymardo wrote:
> O.K. I feel guilty already. She's not really sick. Well, unless a dysfunctional family qualifies as sick... (LOL)
>
> Anyway, My parents presented me with the challenge of restoring this photo. It is horribly grainy all over, faded, and my mother hates her eyes in it.
>
> Is there any to save it?
>
> I would to like to make it look like a perfectly photographed picture. I know that's a challenge, but hey, it seems like you guys and gals like challenges.
>
> This is my first post. I look forward to participating.
>
>
>
> raymardo
>
>

Posted on 22/11/04 6:44:12 PM

nepalii
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Re: Help me fix this crappy picture to surprise my sick mother...

Sorry, I am not really sure how this thing work.Made lots of mistake.

mannepal@yahoo.com

Posted on 22/11/04 7:20:50 PM

Steve Caplin
Administrator
Posts: 6938

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Re: Help me fix this crappy picture to surprise my sick mother...

At 6:44:12 PM 22/11/04, nepalii wrote:
Sorry, I am not really sure how this thing work.Made lots of mistake.

mannepal@yahoo.com

No mistakes! Great fix!

Posted on 05/04/05 00:01:58 AM

Einstein D Kid
Teen Trickster
Posts: 281

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Re: Help me fix this crappy picture to surprise my sick mother...

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