Photo Restoration Blog

Archive for the ‘photoshop techniques’ Category

Sometimes images are too big to scan in one piece especially the very long panorama photos that can reach well over 30 inches and bigger than 50 inches sometimes!

long panorama school photo

What can you do? You can scan this type of image in pieces and then use PhotoShop to stitch them back together.  I will use and example of a photo around 56 inches long of some windmills. It was scanned in five separate sections with an overlap or around 25% per photo and with all your scanners auto exposure setting turned off. This is to ensure that all the separate scans are exactly the same. If you leave your scanner to auto correct each one then they will all end up with slightly different tones and contrast which wont match well when photoshop comes to stitch them together. Once your image is scanned save the files off to a folder called panorama or something useful to you.

Below is the place to find the photo merge or stitch menu to start the photo stitching process once we have our scans saved.

Finding the "photomerge" option in photoshop for stitching large photos together

Next, browse to where we saved the images.

Pointing the photo merge where to open the separate scans ready for stitching

Select the “Auto” option from the radio buttons and select “blend images together” from the check box below the list of files you browsed for just now. Then select OK.

panorama layers once stitched

In the finished result above after PhotoShop has finished stitching the layers, each one will be on a separate layer allowing you to fine tune them in case the stitch was not 100% accurate.

You can see here that I have switched off one of the layers so you can see how photoshop has blended the image. Its done in a nice, seemingly random fashion which is the best blend route and so that it cannot be seen when you zoom in and inspect it. Which is of course the way we want it, totally invisible!

There are not many occasions when it gets it wrong. I have had 2 or 3 instances when stitching school photos with many people together that two or more heads get replicated. Its very rare but can be corrected by manually painting over the masks on the layers. To do this you click on the black mask of the layer that wasn’t blended properly and paint with black or white soft brush, to add or remove the offending or misaligned part of the image.

To see this image restored, see can panorama images be restored or to see another example of stitching images try the post on flaked emulsion on large images

Retouching eyes is a way to improve a portrait. This is a technique I picked up along the photo restoration and retouching road.

Above are some eyes from a portrait from Michael Herb at 204Studios. They have a round studio flash reflected in them. Some say this is attractive and softens the eyes but this is a matter of opinion. Maybe you want to add your own reflection in the eye that suits your style? I have included a layers snap shot of a process to change them.

The bottom layer has the reflection removed. The layer above “whites”, is a soft white brush sprayed in the whites of the eye and then reduced in opacity and masked. this softens the whites.

The “reflection” layer is a single dab of white masked to make a triangular shaped reflection.

Above that is a small white dot, which simulates the main point of light.

Next up is a colour layer to add more of a warm hue to eyes with the centre pupil masked out.

Finally a splash of red also reduced on opacity in the corners of the eyes to remove the grey look and warm up the eyes some more.

The very top layer is just the original so we can refer back to it to see the changes we made.

You then set about retouching the face and skin in your usual way. I hope this retouching eyes article helped you.

Neil

Photo retouching a portrait or fashion shot. If you need  a portrait  to have punch and depth its a good idea to clean up any distracting highlights or shadows to keep focus on the centre of interest. Add some depth of field to give a long lens look which also emphasises the main focal point. Most fashion is shot with a long lens to compress the facial features which gives a more flattering look. Wide angle lenses tend to emphasise noses and other unwanted protrusions. Once the main clean up is done the retouching the portrait can be carried out, smoothing skin and tone and shaping if need be. The final stage would be add the drama to the shot by creating and HDR look or high contrast black and white or other proven technique.

My take on a HDR style portrait and portrait retouch. Many thanks to Kenzins1977 for the image.

Portrait retouching with drama and depth of field

Notes: Portrait Retouched. Skin and reshaped nose, brightened eyes, lightened face, darkened image, made HDR style, dodged and burned to enhance drama, added depth of field to simulate a longer lens.

Drama added with depth of field and HDR style processing

A simple montage of an overweight cow and a dragon fly who cant believe his eyes.

I hope you liked my photoshop gallery this week and there will be more in the future.

Back to photo restoration posts once again for next few posts, stay tuned.

This is day 5 of photomontage week.

This image is simply a water tower tied in a knot! It was an entry into a worth1000 photoshop competition but that entry I forgot to upload the version that contained the shadows (that will teach me to work late into the night!!) It only came 11 out of 18! This is the version with shadows. If you are thinking this is not a montage, think of it as a montage of the same image, bits of it used over and over to make the final image.

Another one tomorrow…

This is day 4 of photomontage week and this latest image is “luminous ocean” 4th out of 15 on pxleyes.com

This image was created from a an old wooden sea groin that had been worn by the sea. The two towers of rock are actually wood in this montage. The stones were also borrowed from the original image, but used where I need them to complete the scene. The sea,sky, sand and clouds were all added to complete the montage.

Another one tomorrow…