Photoshop Creative

This is my mother. I have no idea where the photo was shot, or who the photographer was. I've emailed it to my brothers to see if either of them knows. Also don't know when it was taken, but she died in 1984, so it had to be several years before that.

Cropped, increased saturation, cloned out scratches and what looks like a broom handle. Noise filter for speckles and scratches. Some burning of face and hair to bring out details, and of the glare on the wall to try to reduce it some. Sharpened a little.

before:




after:

You did a wonderful job on the picture , you really brought out the face features.

Thanks Judy.

alpha

So far, so good, Alpha. I hope you don't mind but I took the editing a little further - I'll post the result on my gallery if that's ok, though I could PM it to you on here if you wish.

very good job, alpha

Thanks Geoff and Suzi. Geoff, I don't mind if you want to post it here, or in your gallery. I'm still learning, so I'll listen to ideas from others.

alpha

Hi Alpha - I toned down the wood sheen some more and applied Levels adjustments to various areas. I then tried to tone down the magenta colouring (which may have come from the original developing and processing).

I've put it here http://www.prestophoto.com/photos/image/979469/24460

Nice job, Geoff,

I agree with your second thought - crop away the right-side wall. It adds nothing to the image and is distracting.

I'm not sure about the best way to remove the magenta cast. I have often had better results with a levels adjustment layer rather than Hue/Sat. I'm not accomplished enough with color adjustments to instinctively know what to do; I usually just get into the levels color channels and just blunder along -- even a blind squirrel finds a nut if he looks long enough

Adjust for color variations sometimes works.

Rusty

Geoff, thanks for working on this photo, and Rusty, thanks for commenting.. I respectfully wish to disagree about the "magenta cast" to my version though. I do see some on the face, especially just below her glasses frames where the hair and skin meet. When I zoom in for pixel peeping I see more. I think this magenta was increased by the burning I did of her face.

The vest she was wearing, and the trim on the jacket *were* bright magenta, and any attempts I make to remove magenta from her face turns the vest and jacket trim off color. Plus her face turns blue or gray, and makes her look cyanotic. When I go to adjust color, color cast, and click on a white or black area, nothing changes.

My main goal with these old photos is to try to restore them, not revise them. To me restore means little cropping, and attempting to stay true to the original colors. For that reason I usually only crop enough to get the photo in ratio for printing on today's standard paper sizes.

I did do another version with a much closer crop, and cloned out the little black thing on the table. Also burned the glare on the wall some more. The crop took care of the doorway, hallway, and ugly windowsill. I like this version, but I consider it a revision, not a true to original restoration.

alpha

edited to correct typo