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Posted on 12/02/21 3:56:29 PM |
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DavidMac
Director of Photoshop Posts: 6369 Reply  |
Need Help With Photo Restoring
I have been trying to source old photographs of my mother when she was a professional photographer in the 1930's. The only thing I have been able to find is some old 8mm movie in which there is one shot of her with her Rolleiflex. Here is a frame extracted from this. Any suggestions how I set about restoring this? It's an area of Photoshop I don't know beyond the obvious dust and scratch cleanups. Obviously I can experiment with some pretty intelligent guessing but I believe there are some quite specialised techniques for this. Any of you done this? If it helps I am quite happy for it to be monochrome.  _________________ The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it ....... |
Posted on 14/02/21 1:26:25 PM |
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GKB
Magical Montagist Posts: 4195 Reply  |
Re: Need Help With Photo Restoring
Hi David I have played around with this image but I'm afraid that I cannot realistically get much better than this original. The main problems are the colour cast, the backlight blowing out the sky and much of the rest of the image leaving no detail to enhance, it's out of focus and the resolution, coming from a 8mm cine frame is not the best. As soon as I tried to do anything with it i could see 'blockiness' appearing. You can improve on things slightly, though. Try a levels adjustment by moving the black point to just past the point where the graph starts to rise. Also push up the saturation slightly. A black and white conversion of the adjusted image doesn't look too bad. Also put a copy of the image at the top of the layer stack and Filter>Other>High Pass. Give it a VERY low radius (I used 1.5%) and change the blend mode to hard light. This will add a little bit of sharpness to the image but perhaps not in the way that you might like as you are basically sharpening all the grotty bits. Yo might be able to mask out some of this layer to keave just your mum. 'Fraid there's not a lot that I can do with this image as it stands. i think this cartoon describes the problem:-  _________________  |
Posted on 14/02/21 5:04:47 PM |
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DavidMac
Director of Photoshop Posts: 6369 Reply |
Re: Need Help With Photo Restoring
Thanks Gordon. You have more or less underlined my own problems. Square blockiness appears very quickly once you increase contrast or sharpen. I can get rid of the colour cast and hand paint out the dark lines around the highlights and that's about it. I've lived through a few movie versions of that cartoon. Do you really need all those lights? "Can't you just 'do it' in post?" .....................  _________________ The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it ....... |
Posted on 14/02/21 6:40:26 PM |
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GKB
Magical Montagist Posts: 4195 Reply |
Re: Need Help With Photo Restoring
Get it as near right in camera and only then bring it into your software of choice. _________________ If at first you don't succeed then skydiving is not for you. |
Posted on 14/02/21 7:34:58 PM |
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DavidMac
Director of Photoshop Posts: 6369 Reply |
Re: Need Help With Photo Restoring
Of course! Trying to convince producers of that is not always easy ........... _________________ The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it ....... |
Posted on 22/02/21 10:18:07 PM |
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vibeke
Kreative Kiwi Posts: 2213 Reply  |
Re: Need Help With Photo Restoring
Love that cartoon _________________ Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize. |
Posted on 24/02/21 12:46:14 PM |
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lwc
Hole in One Posts: 3653 Reply  |
Re: Need Help With Photo Restoring
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Posted on 06/07/26 10:57:36 PM |
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dwindt
Realism Realiser Posts: 1137 Reply |
Re: Need Help With Photo Restoring
I hope I did your Mom justice, David.  _________________ The grass is greener on the other side of the fence because there is more $hit there. |
Posted on 08/07/26 6:15:03 PM |
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Steve Caplin
Administrator Posts: 7196 Reply  |
Re: Need Help With Photo Restoring
That’s very impressive! how did you do it? |
Posted on 08/07/26 9:42:57 PM |
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DavidMac
Director of Photoshop Posts: 6369 Reply |
Re: Need Help With Photo Restoring
Dennis that's just amazing! Like Steve, I want to know how you did it. It is interesting that, as her son, I can see the total resemblance but I can't quite connect. In some undefinable, way that I can't even begin to identify, it doesn't feel to be emotionally quite her. But, let's be honest, that's extremely silly of me. Given the quality of the original it would be an absolute miracle if it was. The tiny signs that make up our personality are so infinitesimally small and subtle we cannot expect to possibly recover them from an original in which they are completely blurred or absent and I must also accept that that this was taken when I was still a baby and my 'memory' of her at that time is anyway pure imagination. This is nothing short of astonishing Dennis! A massive THANK YOU! I shall be forwarding this to my older sister in Canada whose memories of our young mother will be four years closer than mine. I think she will be thrilled!! _________________ The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it ....... |
Posted on 08/07/26 11:38:02 PM |
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tooquilos
Wizard of Oz Posts: 3005 Reply  |
Re: Need Help With Photo Restoring
Incredible! _________________ Dorothy: Toto, I've a feeling we're not in Kansas anymore |
Posted on 09/07/26 10:07:49 AM |
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dwindt
Realism Realiser Posts: 1137 Reply |
Re: Need Help With Photo Restoring
Thank you, Steve, David and Anna. I wish I could take the credit but that will have to go to Chatgpt, who I refer to as Smarty, Comfyui; I have a portable version installed on my pc (you do need tons of power and lots of ram) and Flux2 setup within the suite of Comfyui. So far it is the most successful workflow that I have installed for restoring images...and wow, from what is submitted to what the workflow produces, is uncanny and remarkable at the same time, as is evident from your moms photo, David. What I do from this point, is open it in liquify and gently tweak the proportion, eye corners, shape of lips etc, to a better fit. I am trying to develop a workflow that uses multiple images of one face and see if ai can give me a good representation of any given individual's face, so that I can use it as a consistent character in videos. With Smarty's help, I want to see if I can use this character sheet and feed it into an LTX2.3 video and lip-sync workflow and create music videos. _________________ The grass is greener on the other side of the fence because there is more $hit there. |
Posted on 09/07/26 10:50:14 AM |
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dwindt
Realism Realiser Posts: 1137 Reply |
Re: Need Help With Photo Restoring
https://www.flickr.com/photos/203257432@N03/55381995692/in/dateposted-friend/ Heres a 4k copy of you mom. It will make it easier to tweak, if you choose to. This is another workflow I have set up. An upscaler to 4k. _________________ The grass is greener on the other side of the fence because there is more $hit there. |
Posted on 09/07/26 11:33:12 AM |
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dwindt
Realism Realiser Posts: 1137 Reply |
Re: Need Help With Photo Restoring
http://vimeo.com/1208372355?fl=pl&fe=sh This is the LTX2.3 video lip-syn done with one photo. I wrote some words and tried my hand at Suno ai song making. I stopped after doing 3 quarters of the song as I felt the characters face was changing too much over time. I now want to see if I can work out a consistent character sheet to try and maintain the characteristics of the singer. Big task ahead but I feel it would offer me the ability to do what I always wanted to do with my 3D program (hats off to Gordon, Anna, Loyd and Michael) Now there's no need to learn animation in 3D. It's a mammoth time consuming task. _________________ The grass is greener on the other side of the fence because there is more $hit there. |
Posted on 09/07/26 11:48:49 AM |
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dwindt
Realism Realiser Posts: 1137 Reply |
Re: Need Help With Photo Restoring
A few examples of how fascinating the Flux2 model is. A scan of a 35-year-old 6x4in photo  _________________ The grass is greener on the other side of the fence because there is more $hit there. |
Posted on 09/07/26 11:50:14 AM |
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dwindt
Realism Realiser Posts: 1137 Reply |
Re: Need Help With Photo Restoring
Look to the right...or her left  _________________ The grass is greener on the other side of the fence because there is more $hit there. |
Posted on 09/07/26 11:51:52 AM |
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dwindt
Realism Realiser Posts: 1137 Reply |
Re: Need Help With Photo Restoring
Arm down  _________________ The grass is greener on the other side of the fence because there is more $hit there. |
Posted on 09/07/26 11:52:48 AM |
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dwindt
Realism Realiser Posts: 1137 Reply |
Re: Need Help With Photo Restoring
Original stance, remove jacket  _________________ The grass is greener on the other side of the fence because there is more $hit there. |
Posted on 10/07/26 4:21:49 PM |
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DavidMac
Director of Photoshop Posts: 6369 Reply |
Re: Need Help With Photo Restoring
Yes. I had guessed that you had to have had AI help with the restoration. I don't know if it's post prod by you, but what really impressed me is that it doesn't have that glossy too, too perfect look that betrays so much AI. By the way I can't open the 4K version FLICKR tells me I don't have permission to access the file. The song is kind of wonderful and dreadful at the same time. It's technically mind boggling! (Aside from an entertaining moment, shortly after the midpoint, when she takes her hand from the mike stand and leaves her fingers behind) But it does suffer the too glossy perfect AI look. I can't put my finger on what makes this so but it is inescapable. Her expressions are just right ..... but empty with nothing behind them. I think are so many subtleties in real expression that our minds are constantly subconsciously processing that AI has yet to master. It's like watching the difference between a merely competent actor and a real master. But it cannot fail to get better. The problem is a point will come when it becomes the new 'real' and audiences will start to lose the distinction. On another level I am very uncomfortable as where this will lead in the future. We know that if things can be militarised or misused by power seekers they will be. That's a given. AI could make Orwell's visions soon become a vicarage tea party compared to the real possibilities awaiting us. I know I sound just like old folks sound with every generation but we are entering a new era with new unheard of possibilities and it's going to happen in the blink of a eye before we have time to assess or react. I do rather fear Pandora's box is about to be opened. _________________ The subtlety and conviction of any Photoshop effect is invariably inversely proportional to the number of knobs on it ....... |
Posted on 10/07/26 4:38:15 PM |
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dwindt
Realism Realiser Posts: 1137 Reply |
Re: Need Help With Photo Restoring
Try it now David. _________________ The grass is greener on the other side of the fence because there is more $hit there. |
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