I have few photos from my childhood and even fewer with my grandparents in. This like most of them is badly overexposed. I've scanned them as Tiff's and managed to recover a lot of detail in the raw editer, but now any changes made in Photoshop look unnatural.
Is this the best I can hope to get? Any suggestions are gratefully accepted.
Between you and me, and the wall...I like the exposure. It is natural for the camera and the times. Just from the image viewed on a small laptop, I see good separation of the grayscale zones in the faces, the natural "squinting in the sun" look. While there are some highlights blown out, there is little that can be done to bring back, for lack of a better word "data" in digispeak as there is nothing to recoup.
But, and I am not good at this in PS, you could try a Burn in the Highlight areas to see if you can darken the Highlights a little.
Hopefully, there is one person on this site "jinximages" who is, in my opinion, highly intelligent in matters involving these technical details. I have tagged him here, in hopes that he may offer you some advice.
I think what you have here is pretty amazing. This wouldn't look right processed like a modern-day B&W. You've managed to increase exposure without losing the age. What part of it do you not like?
This is only my opinion, and prolly does not count for much, but I think a great deal of the charm is to leave the old pics alone as it lends to the time and feel of how things were back then.. we didn't have much technology then and at that time I am sure this was an amazing capture and I'll bet your Grandparents and parents were totally amazed to seet themselves on paper even if it was in blak and white. Great family pic and treasure!
@pete21 If you want to touch on the photo a little and dont want the effects to be massive then use Curves in PhotoShop, it will let you edit without it over doing it, but I have to say the same as the comment above, this looks nice as it is, its an old photo and looks classic.
also what is it that you want to change on this photo?
Peter - could you give us a little more info about the digitising process ? What software driver did you use? did you adjust the levels or curves in the scanning software pre-scan? what resolution/ settings for scanning?
I learnt a LOT by reading Wayne Fulton's website www.scantips.com, although there is so much there, and some of it quite technical, it took me a few months to digest much of it!! I also now have his book which is a brilliant text on histograms & curves & well worth having. I have had a quick look at the histogram of your shot & there are indeed a lot of blown highlights - some possibly because the shot is taken full sun, but I am thinking it might help to start at the beginning with a fresh scan, scan in colour, and check to see if you need to adjust each of the RGB channels independantly (pre scan where possible, but not clipped) - they dont all fade at the same rate. This might give you more mid-tone depth. Think of the restoration processing as 2 separate phases & keep backups of each phase so you can revert if necessary. The data that is not collected in the scanning phase, will often look false if just put back in using PS. Another thing possibly worth trying post scanning might be to try layers of copies of layers in PS using different blend modes. For example, the overexposed ares can be salvaged a little by using multiply, and a layer mask and merge, you can repeat the multiply layer/mask/merge several times & you can 'develop' data that the human eye could not see there originally. I have recovered amazing images of my mother from very faded prints, and patience is the key & don't be afraid to start from the beginning a few times, because the restoration process is definitely additive - every minor error in adjustment can 'add' to you 'woes' if it deletes data (degradation) from an image. Just my thoughts. Good luck, it is a lovely family portrait :)
@ltodd I'd love to give more detail, but after reading ( and printing ) your post, and looking at the website link, I've come to the conclusion I need to start again :)
I'll let you know how I get on, it may take a while as you have given me plenty to go on.
No problems - patience is the key to sucess with this. I have made so many incredibly BAD attempts at restorative scanning while getting my head around it. Restoration is very time consuming and not a task you can generally apply a single in-built filter to. :) Here is a scan of an overexposed negative that I hand tinted, but I deliberately did NOT change the original 'image' settings. In your shot, I might only focus on trying to reduce the overexposure the girls face, and so allow any remaining overexposure to add character to the shot? (that should correct/improve the legs/arms quite a bit as well of course). As mentoned by the people above, cameras/ photographers of the day often overexposed, and you will need to use a delicate touch to restore, but not go too far.
Photo restoration is why I became interested in digital photography in the first place (see this upload ) so this is a topic dear to my heart!
If you post the best scan you can get, tag me, and I'll have more of an idea, or you could then also start a PWYD (please would you do) discussion and invite the community to have a go.
@cluvlj Thanks for the vote! Haha! :) I'm afraid I can't really contribute much to it though. :(
Beyond what has been said already, I have used textures to "fix" overexposed images once or twice. It doesn't get back real detail in a situation like this (you can't - there is no detail to retrieve without using the actual negatives and some tricky darkroom processing). Basically, the texture adds detail resembling what should be in the blown out areas - like skin texture, for example. It also brings the shade down from white, so it seems less unnatural.
I had a shot I took at a wedding last year, where my speedlight was playing up and was doing full dumps every other shot - I snapped this fantastic moment of a father and son (the groom, no less), and all I got was some black and a whole lot of pure white. I ran the raw file through Lightroom and the highlight recovery tool, reduced exposure etc, and it still looked like pop-art. So I found myself a couple of dark textures, played with the blend modes until the shot looked right, and I had it - ended up being one of the clients' favourite shots (took pride of place in their album and on a canvas). That said, it looks like fine art portraiture - not a "realistic" picture. But the same concepts apply, and your image is nowhere near as far gone as mine was!
Using Photoshop blend modes... first, use your eyedropper tool to select a suitably shaded part of skin (light but not white). That will set your brush colour to a light grey. Next, create a new layer above your main image. On this layer, select the blend mode dropdown menu and choose "darken". Now, with a soft brush (and low opacity or flow - single digits) paint your grey over the blown out areas, on the new layer. Using a low opacity or flow, you can just brush over areas several times until it looks "right", this blending shadows and highlights. Flatten when done. Note: you may have to try a couple of different blend modes to get the desired result - every image is different, and what works on one might not be the best for another. Start with "darken" and if that doesn't work so well try the others (multiply etc).
Once you have the tones looking right, you can add some noise (filters menu) and, using a layer mask, paint it in where you want it to simulate skin texture.
Tweets ahoy!
Join the Group
Pin With Me
But, and I am not good at this in PS, you could try a Burn in the Highlight areas to see if you can darken the Highlights a little.
Hopefully, there is one person on this site "jinximages" who is, in my opinion, highly intelligent in matters involving these technical details. I have tagged him here, in hopes that he may offer you some advice.
@jinximages
also what is it that you want to change on this photo?
I learnt a LOT by reading Wayne Fulton's website www.scantips.com, although there is so much there, and some of it quite technical, it took me a few months to digest much of it!! I also now have his book which is a brilliant text on histograms & curves & well worth having. I have had a quick look at the histogram of your shot & there are indeed a lot of blown highlights - some possibly because the shot is taken full sun, but I am thinking it might help to start at the beginning with a fresh scan, scan in colour, and check to see if you need to adjust each of the RGB channels independantly (pre scan where possible, but not clipped) - they dont all fade at the same rate. This might give you more mid-tone depth. Think of the restoration processing as 2 separate phases & keep backups of each phase so you can revert if necessary. The data that is not collected in the scanning phase, will often look false if just put back in using PS. Another thing possibly worth trying post scanning might be to try layers of copies of layers in PS using different blend modes. For example, the overexposed ares can be salvaged a little by using multiply, and a layer mask and merge, you can repeat the multiply layer/mask/merge several times & you can 'develop' data that the human eye could not see there originally. I have recovered amazing images of my mother from very faded prints, and patience is the key & don't be afraid to start from the beginning a few times, because the restoration process is definitely additive - every minor error in adjustment can 'add' to you 'woes' if it deletes data (degradation) from an image. Just my thoughts. Good luck, it is a lovely family portrait :)
@sdpace @neeko I was cloning in detail but on the legs..........
@shirljess :) I'm being a bit greedy aren't I ?
I'll let you know how I get on, it may take a while as you have given me plenty to go on.
Here is a scan of an overexposed negative that I hand tinted, but I deliberately did NOT change the original 'image' settings. In your shot, I might only focus on trying to reduce the overexposure the girls face, and so allow any remaining overexposure to add character to the shot? (that should correct/improve the legs/arms quite a bit as well of course). As mentoned by the people above, cameras/ photographers of the day often overexposed, and you will need to use a delicate touch to restore, but not go too far.
Photo restoration is why I became interested in digital photography in the first place (see this upload ) so this is a topic dear to my heart!
If you post the best scan you can get, tag me, and I'll have more of an idea, or you could then also start a PWYD (please would you do) discussion and invite the community to have a go.
Beyond what has been said already, I have used textures to "fix" overexposed images once or twice. It doesn't get back real detail in a situation like this (you can't - there is no detail to retrieve without using the actual negatives and some tricky darkroom processing). Basically, the texture adds detail resembling what should be in the blown out areas - like skin texture, for example. It also brings the shade down from white, so it seems less unnatural.
I had a shot I took at a wedding last year, where my speedlight was playing up and was doing full dumps every other shot - I snapped this fantastic moment of a father and son (the groom, no less), and all I got was some black and a whole lot of pure white. I ran the raw file through Lightroom and the highlight recovery tool, reduced exposure etc, and it still looked like pop-art. So I found myself a couple of dark textures, played with the blend modes until the shot looked right, and I had it - ended up being one of the clients' favourite shots (took pride of place in their album and on a canvas). That said, it looks like fine art portraiture - not a "realistic" picture. But the same concepts apply, and your image is nowhere near as far gone as mine was!
Using Photoshop blend modes... first, use your eyedropper tool to select a suitably shaded part of skin (light but not white). That will set your brush colour to a light grey. Next, create a new layer above your main image. On this layer, select the blend mode dropdown menu and choose "darken". Now, with a soft brush (and low opacity or flow - single digits) paint your grey over the blown out areas, on the new layer. Using a low opacity or flow, you can just brush over areas several times until it looks "right", this blending shadows and highlights. Flatten when done. Note: you may have to try a couple of different blend modes to get the desired result - every image is different, and what works on one might not be the best for another. Start with "darken" and if that doesn't work so well try the others (multiply etc).
Once you have the tones looking right, you can add some noise (filters menu) and, using a layer mask, paint it in where you want it to simulate skin texture.