The deep end of the pond...

[leeharper_admin]

I'll post the image first - and the steps I took in the next post so that you don't have to scroll past loads of text to get to the picture.

Lee.

[mikemeister_admin]

Ok - here's the torturous process!

• The image arrives without a profile, so the first thing we need to do is assign it one - but which one? I tried Apple RGB, sRGB, and ColorMatch RGB, and decided that Apple RGB looked best (sRGB and ColorMatch RGB either oversaturated, or overly darkened the photo).


• I wanted to begin by addressing the imbalance between the RGB channels, so - Apply Image: Blend 50% of the Red channel into the Green channel; followed by Apply Image: Blend 45% of the Green channel into the Blue channel.


• Initially I assumed (wrongly) that the woman was a redhead, so I found some images in similar lighting of redheads and compared the channel structure of those images with this one. In Photoshop, with each image set so that I was looking at the red channel of each, I curved the portrait so that its red channel looked more similar to the other images. I followed the same procedure with the green and blue channels. These corrections revealed that the woman actually had brown hair, so I repeated the procedure above using different comparison images.


• With the colours now in better shape, I moved into CurveMeister, and applied the H Pallor Caucasian pin from Greg's SHN Skin Tones pin file. I thought that she might be wearing makeup, so I applied the pin to the highlight on her neck. Initially I applied this pin in RGB, but it blew out the highlights on the Beth's skin, so I switched to Lab.


• Returning to Photoshop, I applied Shadow/Highlights (S:18/25/30 - H:8/26/30) to pull back the blown-out areas of the image, and get back some detail in the hair (SH.jpg - attached).


• I went back into CurveMeister (in wg-CMYK) and curved the Cyan and Black channels (curve attached) to make the dress look better. Black generation was set to Heavy as far as I remember...


• The dress still needed some work in Lab - but I needed a mask, so I applied the wg-CMYK moves and moved back into Photoshop to build a mask. Having built a mask I went back into CM and used the Lab saturation slider to pull the saturation of the dress closer to the saturation of the skintones.


• Another trip to CM now (again in Lab) to give the whole image a colour boost. I did this by moving the endpoints on the A and B curves, but not symetrically as I still had some colour cast issues to attend to. (ColourBoost.jpg - attached)


• As with Zog, I used the Lab Color painting trick (explained by Zog, above). I used the technique to fix the blown-out area on Beth's forehead, and to remove the blue colour from the shadows in her hair.


• Returning to RGB I created a new layer containing my progress (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E), set it to Luminosity mode, and used Apply Image to blend the channels into each other (to enhance the contrast in the image). I followed this up with some sharpening (USM: 20/6/0).


• Duplicating the image (flattened), and moving into Lab, I made a copy of the Background layer, and set it to Multiply. I then created a new layer containing the result of the Multiply move (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+E), and threw the Multiply layer away. This new layer was duplicated. I then set one of the two to Luminosity mode (50% Opacity), and the other to Color (60% Opacity). (Lab_Multiply.jpg - attached)


• Back in RGB I tried to remove as much of the weird texture from the image (I can't tell if it's a halftone pattern, or the image was printed onto canvas), using mostly Surface Blur. I've not been able to completely remove it unfortunately.


• I was almost finished at this point, but wondered whether one of Greg's skin-tone pins might work any more magic now that the image was basically ok. I decided to use one, but reduced the effect to 20% (using Edit > Fade...).

Last few steps:

• More sharpening - USM: 500/0.5/0); a Hue/Saturation adjustment (reducing Saturation by 10%); and finally - because you're all looking at the large versions ;) - some spot healing and clone stamping to remove the stratches visible at 100%.

 

(Before uploading I converted the image to sRGB)

This took about 3 hours, so I'll probably not try again from scratch, but I've saved all my layers so you never know - I might tweak it a bit more.

Thanks for such a great challenge!

Cheers,
Lee.

[mikemeister_admin]

Really excellent Lee, especially the texture/detail and colour of the dress - and I think you are spot on with the hair
Well done
Chris

[mikemeister_admin]

Could you make the strawberry a bit more red,nice job on the forehead.GregM

[leeharper_admin]

Thanks very much Chris  ;D  I think that my corrections have come on a lot this week. If I had attempted that image a week or two ago it would have been a complete mess! You've all helped me so much with your participation - thanks so much!

Greg M - I'll have another look at the strawberry in a day or two. I want to figure out how to get rid of the (canvas/halftone?) texture without losing the texture in the dress or decimating the skin, but having spent so long working on this image today I think I need a bit of a break from it  ;)

Thanks everyone,
Lee.

[Chris Nicola]

This is my image after further tweaking in PSE. Increased saturation 10, adjusted levels, increased shadows +5, decreased highlighs -5. Cloned over forehead highlight a bit. Decreased red midones a bit. Still could do with some more work. I thank you all as I have learned so much from looking at all your corrections.


Kind Regards

Chris Nicola

[imported_BoydMac]

Well, here is my first attempt.  I did not spend the time to take all the defects out - just tried to do something for the color.  It appears that I will be able to learn a great deal in the next few weeks.

[ggroess]

The texture is actually the surface of the print from a scan of an old print.  I think the only way to fully remove it would be to scan again at 90 degrees and then combine the images.
here is another possibility...
http://www.curvemeister.com/forum/index.php/topic,62.msg3460.html#msg3460

I posted it more for the color corection but you guys have really made this image jump...

Awesome work really...
Greg

[mikemeister_admin]

Hi Greg  :)

I've just tried to follow that link you posted about using the FFT method to get rid of the texture, and I've found that when I'm logged into the forum I get an error message: 'The topic or board you are looking for appears to be either missing or off limits to you.' But, if I log out and then try the link I'm able to get there.

I've also noticed that when I log out there are more sections of the forum available (threads about Equipment, etc). When logged in I can only see: Help Me! I'm new..., Announcements..., CM Support, Enrollment, and Curvemeister 101 June 2010 - there is much more available when I'm not logged in. Strange  ???

Lee  :D

[ggroess]

I'll check your profile...
I made a small change...
Did it have a big impact??

Greg