Something Old

From a previous post, the watch image was accepted!  (wººt) I'll have to print it out and make sure I have a good image to present for the next class.

Today was a reshoot of my failed attempt at Black on Black, and moving forward with a new silverware shoot that had to conform to a template.  There was some styling involved and I think it made the grade.  We'll see how it all turns out. It was a learning experience, and it was fun to work with a video student/classmate.

This entry isn't about any of that stuff, however.  I want to blog about one of more interesting classes... What we did in Digital Illustration II was pretty amazing, and I would like to share what the outcome was of our last assignment.  What we had to do was take an old, beat up photograph that we found in some antique store or at home and restore it to it's original beauty, or enhance it to make it look better than the original.  I got a pretty messed up image of a ship at sea with some Sailors doing their thing.

Original image scanned at 600 dpi to be repaired.

As you can see it's pretty messed up. I started off by cropping the image so that I could remove the tear at the bottom left hand corner, the funky lines at the left side and top, and some of the right side where the funky stain is near the top area. 

Once cropped I turned the image black and white since the original scan was done in color.

Scanned image cropped and made black & white.

The reason for the black and white is to get the best tonal quality of the image so that it can be processed easier and with more stunning results.  I still had a lot of work ahead of me, and the retouching process was a labor of love for the most part.  I think my OCD kicked in and I started to obsess over the smallest hair or blemish in the photograph.  After many hours of cloning, healing, spot healing and freaking out, I had this:

This was the result of many hours of crack removal.

So that's the repair so far.  Once the long task of retouching was completed, there was some more touching up to do.

Though it doesn't seem too noticeable here, the image was sharpened to bring out more detail.

A sharpening process was done to the image and it was lightened a bit (though it seems darker here than in 'real life) in order to add the last bit of treatment - color!

Voilá!  The final results.  

It was a lot of fun, I must say, even though it was a bear to get the image to play nice at times with the way the water touched the ship, and the Sailor's body being pretty much torn in half.  I think the image turned out quite well, and was received that way in class, so  - yeay.  Oh, and extra credit to anyone who knows what ship that is and when this image was taken. :D

Not wanting to lose the touch of being able to do this sort of thing, I saw an old photo of a family friend's grandfather that's hanging in his place of business and *had* to ask to take and see if I could restore it.  I mean, if I could take an old image like the one above and do all that without much in the way of satisfaction that I helped someone out there get back a treasured memory, I could at least do something for someone I knew and knew would cherish the results (if they came out okay...).

So I took the old photo, and sparing the details and processes of the above, got the following results...

Grampa before & after restoration

As you can see, I didn't add color to this restoration.  I had tried putting color into it, but it didn't do the image any justice whatsoever.  It just 'felt right' as a black and white image, and was well received when i gave it to my friend.  I'm waiting to hear what his grandmother will have to say about it.  

I hope it makes her smile...

Watch THIS!

In order to really capture the amount of dislike I have for my Advanced Lighting class, I'd have to write this blog with the tip of my dry and calloused tongue after I dragged myself across my studio floor, hands tied behind my back, beat with a rusty tripod, nude.  And then doused with alcohol or hydrogen peroxide, depending on the level of mercy my torturer contained.

So - the image I created for the "boxes" product shot had to be redone because it was dark, admittedly, but the composition wasn't to the teacher's liking.  He's the boss.  So, I reshot it and it 'barely' made the cut.  It'll be here after this entry.

Next, the black on black image of the skull was rejected for exceptionally minor lighting flaws, but mainly because the teacher didn't like the subject.  He never specified it had to be a black box-shaped object, or some other technical thing.  Just that it had to be 'visually interesting.'  And, since I had to reshoot it anyway, make it a black boring box presented in an interesting way.  No worries.  He's the boss.

Next assignment was to shoot a watch.  Yes, a watch.  These things seem like they'd be easy to capture on film since they are, by all practical means, still life.  They have to be set at either 1:50 am/pm (0150 / 1350 for you 24-hour types) or 10:10 am/pm (1010 / 2210 for you afore mentioned 24-hour types). This requires the battery to be removed, and to ensure the pin that sets the time is pushed in.  Also - it needs to be an analog timepiece of either the wrist or pocket watch variety.  The metal must be silver or gold, and can be shiny or brushed.  The watch should be presented in a pleasing way, well lit as to show all sides without darkness on its specular surfaces...

I have no idea if I did the right thing.  I guess we'll see when the critique comes, but holy hell...