Grainy Photo enlargement

Run something like NeatImage on it (http://www.neatimage.com) to get rid of the grain and then do you other manipulations.

Robert

"Alwyn Williams" wrote in message

I’m having a few problems with a photograph that’s been taken with a very cheap 35mm camera. Basically it’s very grainy, the definition is poor and the subjects (my two neices) have really bad red eye. I’m trying to crop

the

subjects from the centre of the photo & enlarge to approx 8 x 6.
Gausian blur doesn’t help & all I seem to be able to do is use various filters to end up with what looks like an oil painting which isn’t really what my brother in law wants.

I’m also having problems with the red eye tool. The eyes really are very

red

& I just don’t seem to be able to get the correct colours – blue & brown.
Can anyone make any suggestions or point me to any tutorials.
Thanks
A

With the redeye just select the eyes and copy to a new layer then run hue/saturation on it to remove the redeye.

On Thu, 4 Dec 2003 15:52:25 -0000, "Alwyn Williams" wrote:

I’m having a few problems with a photograph that’s been taken with a very cheap 35mm camera. Basically it’s very grainy, the definition is poor and the subjects (my two neices) have really bad red eye. I’m trying to crop the subjects from the centre of the photo & enlarge to approx 8 x 6.
Gausian blur doesn’t help & all I seem to be able to do is use various filters to end up with what looks like an oil painting which isn’t really what my brother in law wants.

I’m also having problems with the red eye tool. The eyes really are very red & I just don’t seem to be able to get the correct colours – blue & brown.
Can anyone make any suggestions or point me to any tutorials.
Thanks
A

In article <3LIzb.1002$>, Alwyn
Williams wrote:

I’m having a few problems with a photograph that’s been taken with a very cheap 35mm camera. Basically it’s very grainy, the definition is poor and the subjects (my two neices) have really bad red eye. I’m trying to crop the subjects from the centre of the photo & enlarge to approx 8 x 6.
Gausian blur doesn’t help & all I seem to be able to do is use various filters to end up with what looks like an oil painting which isn’t really what my brother in law wants.

I’m also having problems with the red eye tool. The eyes really are very red & I just don’t seem to be able to get the correct colours – blue & brown.

This sounds like a situation in which any significant improvement will look obviously retouched. Nevertheless, here are a couple of suggestions:
1. If the color variation of the film grain is objectionable, convert to Lab mode and blur the a and b channels by about a pixel. They contain all the color information and none of the detail (i.e.the luminance).
2. Back in RGB you can use the Blur tool to blur the larger areas with no detail, leaving the details grainy. IOW, blur the cheeks but leave the eyes, nose & mouth grainy. You can be much more precise about this by hand than you can using selections…but it takes longer. The result will look retouched but might be better than nothing.
3. I haven’t used CS’s red eye tool yet but here’s a hand method that might work:
a. Use the Sponge tool in desaturate mode, flow=100%. Size it to just cover the red. Click repeatedly until the red eye is now grey eye.
b. The black of the pupils is now a medium or dark gray. Use the Burn
tool set to Midtones, flow about 50%. Click repeatedly til the pupils look right. Note that the tool doesn’t affect highlights in the eyes.
c. If the iris is the wrong color, you can use the Sponge tool in
saturate mode to bring back color, or the Brush tool in color mode to arbitrarily add color.

I hope your brother-in-law appreciates your effort!
Tom Nelson
Tom Nelson Photography

Tom Nelson wrote:

I hope your brother-in-law appreciates your effort!

Maybe he’d appreciate a new camera more…?

🙂

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Thanks for the suggestions. It’s finally looking good.

"Tom Nelson" wrote in message

In article <3LIzb.1002$>, Alwyn
Williams wrote:

I’m having a few problems with a photograph that’s been taken with a

very

cheap 35mm camera. Basically it’s very grainy, the definition is poor

and

the subjects (my two neices) have really bad red eye. I’m trying to crop

the

subjects from the centre of the photo & enlarge to approx 8 x 6.
Gausian blur doesn’t help & all I seem to be able to do is use various filters to end up with what looks like an oil painting which isn’t

really

what my brother in law wants.

I’m also having problems with the red eye tool. The eyes really are very

red

& I just don’t seem to be able to get the correct colours – blue &

brown.

This sounds like a situation in which any significant improvement will look obviously retouched. Nevertheless, here are a couple of suggestions:
1. If the color variation of the film grain is objectionable, convert to Lab mode and blur the a and b channels by about a pixel. They contain all the color information and none of the detail (i.e.the luminance).
2. Back in RGB you can use the Blur tool to blur the larger areas with no detail, leaving the details grainy. IOW, blur the cheeks but leave the eyes, nose & mouth grainy. You can be much more precise about this by hand than you can using selections…but it takes longer. The result will look retouched but might be better than nothing.
3. I haven’t used CS’s red eye tool yet but here’s a hand method that might work:
a. Use the Sponge tool in desaturate mode, flow=100%. Size it to just cover the red. Click repeatedly until the red eye is now grey eye.
b. The black of the pupils is now a medium or dark gray. Use the Burn
tool set to Midtones, flow about 50%. Click repeatedly til the pupils look right. Note that the tool doesn’t affect highlights in the eyes.
c. If the iris is the wrong color, you can use the Sponge tool in
saturate mode to bring back color, or the Brush tool in color mode to arbitrarily add color.

I hope your brother-in-law appreciates your effort!
Tom Nelson
Tom Nelson Photography