Subtle color removal

"Dennis Kuhn" wrote in message

I’m using PS 7, and I’ve used various techniques with varying success, but I keep getting the nagging feeling there’s a simpler, better way to do this…

I’m working on restoring an old color photo, and after adjusting the RGB levels to bring back as much color info as possible, I occasionally get a strange coloring artifact. For instance, last weekend, I ended up with a girl with great color for her clothes and most of her face, but her chin had a faint greenish tint to it. If I tried adjusting the levels some more, something ELSE would get thrown off, so I try to work on just that section.

I’ve tried Replace Color, I’ve tried doing a very soft selection on the area and cloning skin color from the cheeks, and I’ve tried using the Adjust-Hue and Saturation.

All three techniques work, but require lots of fiddling around. Do I have tool blinders on? (Am I ignoring some other tool that is better suited to this?)

Or do I just need more practice? Any suggestions?

It seems you’re missing a key PS ingredient: namely, masks. Learn how to use your selection tools and make masks so that you can control the exact areas you want to adjust, as well as those you want to leave alone.

Global adjustments are exactly that. You press on the balloon in one area and it will bulge elsewhere, usually where it is not wanted. Get out the manual, read up on making selections and using masks, and you’ll avoid this problem.

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"Dennis Kuhn" wrote in message

I’m using PS 7, and I’ve used various techniques with varying success, but I keep getting the nagging feeling there’s a simpler, better way to do this…

I’m working on restoring an old color photo, and after adjusting the RGB levels to bring back as much color info as possible, I occasionally get a strange coloring artifact. For instance, last weekend, I ended up with a girl with great color for her clothes and most of her face, but her chin had a faint greenish tint to it. If I tried adjusting the levels some more, something ELSE would get thrown off, so I try to work on just that section.

I’ve tried Replace Color, I’ve tried doing a very soft selection on the area and cloning skin color from the cheeks, and I’ve tried using the Adjust-Hue and Saturation.

All three techniques work, but require lots of fiddling around. Do I have tool blinders on? (Am I ignoring some other tool that is better suited to this?)

Or do I just need more practice? Any suggestions?

Dennis

This is a no-brainer.

Go here: http://www.colormechanic.com/

This is Color Mechanic Pro from the Digital Light & Color folks. This is the brainchild of Jonathan Sachs the inventor of Lotus 1-2-3. He does color work now and this is a "must have" plugin IMHO.

Great stuff.

Tom

Dennis Kuhn wrote:

I’m using PS 7, and I’ve used various techniques with varying success, but I keep getting the nagging feeling there’s a simpler, better way to do this…

I’m working on restoring an old color photo, and after adjusting the RGB levels to bring back as much color info as possible, I occasionally get a strange coloring artifact. For instance, last weekend, I ended up with a girl with great color for her clothes and most of her face, but her chin had a faint greenish tint to it. If I tried adjusting the levels some more, something ELSE would get thrown off, so I try to work on just that section.

I’ve tried Replace Color, I’ve tried doing a very soft selection on the area and cloning skin color from the cheeks, and I’ve tried using the Adjust-Hue and Saturation.

All three techniques work, but require lots of fiddling around. Do I have tool blinders on? (Am I ignoring some other tool that is better suited to this?)

Or do I just need more practice?

Practice makes Perfect:
http://community.webshots.com/photo/38859810/118879751QdfdDW

🙂

Uni

Any suggestions?

Dennis

"Flycaster" …

It seems you’re missing a key PS ingredient: namely, masks. Learn how to use your selection tools and make masks so that you can control the exact areas you want to adjust, as well as those you want to leave alone.
Global adjustments are exactly that. You press on the balloon in one area and it will bulge elsewhere, usually where it is not wanted. Get out the manual, read up on making selections and using masks, and you’ll avoid this problem.

Making selections is pretty straightforward for me — I use the lasso tool or go to that alternate selection method where you paint your selection, which allows less than 100% selection of pixels. You’re right, I’m not that well-versed in masks beyond the simple levels adjustment masks for global.

But still, after I’ve properly selected the problem area, how would you suggest I remove one particular shade of color, like a slight green tinge from an otherwise flesh-colored patch of skin?

Or are you saying that there’s a partof the masks section in the manual that will let me select only a chosen color? I’ve tried this with the magic selection wand, but since the pixels are various shades of pink-green, it’s really hard to get the ones I want.

Dennis

But still, after I’ve properly selected the problem area, how would you suggest I remove one particular shade of color, like a slight green tinge from an otherwise flesh-colored patch of skin?

Use a paintbrush set to Color mode to paint in the appropriate color, or use Image->Adjust->Curves to correct the color.

—
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"Dennis Kuhn" wrote in message
[snip]

Making selections is pretty straightforward for me — I use the lasso tool or go to that alternate selection method where you paint your selection, which allows less than 100% selection of pixels. You’re right, I’m not that well-versed in masks beyond the simple levels adjustment masks for global.

But still, after I’ve properly selected the problem area, how would you suggest I remove one particular shade of color, like a slight green tinge from an otherwise flesh-colored patch of skin?
Or are you saying that there’s a partof the masks section in the manual that will let me select only a chosen color? I’ve tried this with the magic selection wand, but since the pixels are various shades of pink-green, it’s really hard to get the ones I want.

First, are you sure this green color cast doesn’t exist throughout the image? Try to find neutral tones throughout the image (white, black, or some grey tone) and see if the RGB values are the same. If not, make a global adjustment curves layer and eliminate the overall color cast. This takes care of about 90% of all color problems right off the bat.

If the cast just appears in a section or two, simply select them using the lasso with an appropriate feather, and then toggle an adjustment curves layer (the selections will automatically be added to the mask) In this example, select the green channel, sample-select the area you want to change inside the selection (ctl-click, which places the point on the curve for you) and simply adjust the curve by changing the numbers, or by drag-moving the point itself. Incidentally, this is virtually the same method many people use to eliminate global color casts, except here a selection is involved.

The magic wand is a poor tool for this type of edit, since you can’t identify specific tones to work with. Another tool that you might want to experiment with is Color Range under the Selection menu. It creates feathered masks based on image samples that might do the job nicely in this example.

You can also make the same adjustments using a levels layer if you prefer, but I find curves to be a bit more intuitive. Give these a shot and see how it works out. Once again, however, many local adjustments result from *global* color casts – try to eliminate these first, and you’ll find that the need to make local correction edits diminishes a lot.

As another recent thread suggested, work on the big stuff first.

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"Flycaster" …

"Dennis Kuhn" wrote in message
[snip]

Making selections is pretty straightforward for me — I use the lasso tool or go to that alternate selection method where you paint your selection, which allows less than 100% selection of pixels. You’re right, I’m not that well-versed in masks beyond the simple levels adjustment masks for global.

But still, after I’ve properly selected the problem area, how would you suggest I remove one particular shade of color, like a slight green tinge from an otherwise flesh-colored patch of skin?
Or are you saying that there’s a partof the masks section in the manual that will let me select only a chosen color? I’ve tried this with the magic selection wand, but since the pixels are various shades of pink-green, it’s really hard to get the ones I want.

First, are you sure this green color cast doesn’t exist throughout the image? Try to find neutral tones throughout the image (white, black, or some grey tone) and see if the RGB values are the same. If not, make a global adjustment curves layer and eliminate the overall color cast. This takes care of about 90% of all color problems right off the bat.

In the case of the photo I was working on when I posted my original question, it only appeared on the chin, which was kind of odd. But then, almost ALL of my restoration work has something odd in it. 🙂

I once got a series of four 8×10’s, taken over a period of about 10 years at the same studio, let’s say from 1970 to 1980. The studio didn’t keep the negatives for these older shots, so I had to first photograph them (there was a drastic pebble grain texture that would’ve been tedious to remove from just a scan). The artifacting on the photos stared as very light on the first photo, to very prominent on the oldest.

Here’s the weird part: The artifacts strongly resembled _facial hair_, and appeared mostly in places where facial hair would normally appear, under the nose, on the chin, cheeks and neck. The lady who dropped off the photos explained that none of her sons and daughters ever had that stubble. 🙂 Healing brush and cloning brush did most of my work on that one, but I’ve never seen such a thing before or since.

I’ll definitely take your advice in future work (and maybe just pull up the original files I was working on) to try the techniques out. I have a couple of good books on restoration techniques, but I think I skipped from the original PS manual to the specific techniques books too quickly now.

It’s always great to get new angles on problems from live people, though.

I appreciate everybody’s feedback in this thread!

Dennis