Help WIth Photo Manipulation

lylejk · **Joined:** Sep 24, 2010 **Posts:** 12849

Thanks for the comments; tried to give more details to the facial area but keep the rest abstract. Again, artist I'm not; faker I am. lol

SysTemX · **Joined:** Dec 08, 2013 **Posts:** 1088

GnuTux · **Posted:** Fri Oct 24, 2014 10:21 am **(#23)**

I like the abstract version, Lyle. It might look cool blown up to poster size.

In trying to improve the original scan, I suppose there is just going to be a trade off between details and smoothing. I think you guys have done an good job of finding the sweet spot. :bigthup

dinasset · **Posted:** Fri Oct 24, 2014 12:39 pm **(#24)**

Gnutux,
if you like "artistic" processing, why not trying MediaChance DAP?
Here are some examples (the output can be more precise if you let the program continue painting, I stopped it quite soon...)

lylejk · **Joined:** Sep 24, 2010 **Posts:** 12849

I agree with dinasset. I was one of the original owners of this cool program. Worth every penny I spent over the years for the program and the updates. Oscar is one of the best programmers I've seen and he sells several cool programs, but I only purchased Photo-Reactor (since I'm a huge believer in node editors; future of editing and GIMP too will soon be able to do this; one of the reasons I have Postwork Shop Pro too) and DAP.

YAFU · **Joined:** Nov 09, 2011 **Posts:** 726

All good works there!

molly, very good work with noise reduction. What filters you've used?
Here my attempt. I cheated a little using first RawTherapee for noise reduction. Then in GIMP with very little of G'MIC Iain's noise reduction to reduce fine noise, unsharp mask for detail and a bit of manual retouching:

The Warrior · **Joined:** Jun 02, 2013 **Posts:** 2090

I gave it a go. Not the best:

Lightened this one up a bit. Lost a bit of detail:

SysTemX · **Joined:** Dec 08, 2013 **Posts:** 1088

Blew this up to a height of 12000. " looked alright " said the blind man

wbool63 · **Posted:** Sat Oct 25, 2014 6:45 am **(#29)**

SystemX, Dinnaset, Yafu and The Warrior, all great images. As mentioned when you lighten, you lose detail. I tried Wavelet Decompose, Iain noise filter and several despeckle filters . In the end I decided on Iain's Noise reduction filter in G'Mic. My image is much the same as yours and in the end I am still not happy with it but the more I try the more detail gets lost.
The only thing I did different is that I cloned out the flashlight reflection in the glass of the cabinet behind the subject before I started playing. I think that the reflection is an unwanted item.

GnuTux · **Posted:** Sat Oct 25, 2014 9:10 am **(#30)**

Most excellent work. :jumpclap

You guys could start an online business and make a fortune restoring & enhancing old potos. :bigthup

I can almost tell what's on that table behind him. The tall crystal bottle to the right of the clock is filled with camphor. I always grabbed the bottle, shook it up, popped the top off and took a big whiff. Camphor has a great smell. Camphor is used as a liniment.

Wbool63, thanks also for recommending Iain's Noise reduction filter in G'Mic. I will take some time and play with that.

molly · **Joined:** Apr 07, 2010 **Posts:** 14182

I remember my mother making camphor bags and pinning them to our pajamas when we had a cold. It is a very nice smell.

SysTemX · **Joined:** Dec 08, 2013 **Posts:** 1088