Using Xara X or Xtreme for Retouch

[sallybode]

Granted, for most of my bitmap editing, I am going to use Photoshop, but with this detail wedding study, the veil was too prominent across the face. Creating a soft focus also blurred details I wanted to preserve. Yet still striving for a photo style of the 30's and 40's.

Believe it or not, I was able to focus the eyes, create the lens flare and to control the lighting in areas of the photograph which Photoshop wasn't able to do.

This is a very useful tool for retouching that needs to go the next step.

[tad]

Terrific !

Exactly what did you do ?

Rgds,
tad

[Christine Farrelly]

And can you post the original so we can compare them.

Christine

[sallybode]

All but the details were done in Photoshop but Photoshop is much harder to do the detail retouching I did unless you are using stroke paths, and then controlling fade and feathering. Since these do not remain editable, I used Xara, it was faster.

To get the image ready for Xara, I made several copies of the original which I desaturated, then corrected the washed out looking image with levels and brightness and contrast overall. Then going back to untouched copy layers, I made other selections that needed different levels such as the flowers and the bridal cap making a 5 to 10 pixel feather. The veil really stood out over the face. The orginal I was working with is 600 dpi to compensate for quality loss for blurring and other effects I use when restoring photos. What is posted here is 72 dpi, so the full effect of how prominent the veil appeared over the face is not seen. Moire filters do not remove a veil net only pixel patterns laid down by printing process. This pattern is not recognized. I also used filters to minimize the dust. All of this adds to the blur. I did want the skin to be blurred to give a diffuse glow. On this I made additional selections, used gaussian blur and then erased with an eraser with a 100% soft-edge to reveal the eyes, nose, lips and eyebrows. I subtracted the background and made a simpler one, then feathered the lower part of the picture with a black gradient to transparent to help focus the attention more on the face.

In Xara, I could concentrate on the eyelashes, which were mostly blurred away, and recreat the eyes using transparency and much use of the Italic brushes. I also used Xara to further correct the contrast of one of the leaves in the bouquet and to eliminate other parts that to me were distracting on the right hand side behind the bride. I used the six sided hexagon pulled into a really tight star with a slight blur and transparency to make twinkles in the eyes. It may not seem like I did that much, but the whole idea of retouching and restoration is to make it look like it was not retouched. So you go back and forth at different zooms until you have made all the adjustments that are necessary to achieve that.

The difference between the before retouch in Xara and after speaks for itself, the picture communicates much more of the sparkle and zest of a young woman than without the enhancements.

[jclements]

Excellent example.

Good job and thanks for taking the time to do this compilation.

I hope you can contribute more info like this in the future.

Thank you!

Regards, John

[John Rayner]

Hi Sally...

Nice mini-tut.

Here is a semi quick way to reduce the amount the viel stands out from the background. Take a copy of the image, slice and dice the veil from the rest of the picture, then apply a stained glass transparency to it and a bit of feathering. Then output the whole mess...

See attached...

[sallybode]

Thanks, you're right. I just stared at it too long. Needed a new perspective.

[amoore]

Wonderful work, Sally, and a great explanation!

I'm curious, though. What are the three round things on the middle left side of the final? It's almost like a lens flare.

[sallybode]

Yes, it is a lens flare, it is in the above descriptioin I wrote.

I felt it was a nice addition.

[amoore]

So you did. I thought I'd read something like that, then couldn't find it when I went back to look.