need advice on touching up photo

DT
Posted By
Dominique_Tomei
Sep 27, 2006
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405
Replies
9
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Closed
I totally thought I could detach myself emotionally from this job, but turns out I can only work on it for small amounts of time before I need a break…

A new friend of mine just confided that she had a baby 5 years ago (full-term) that was stillborn. All she has are photographs of her little girl, and they’re not great. The 5th anniversary of her death is coming up in October and she thought it would be appropriate to have one of more of these shots touched up, enlarged for the occasion. When she saw some of the work I have around my house of my own kids and commented on how impressed she was, I simply couldn’t help but to offer to try to fix up her photos for her.

Sorry for the long intro to my question… The baby’s face has some discoloration – the photos were taken several hours after her birth. It’s not horrible, and for the most part I’ve managed to even things out. However, I’m having trouble with her lips. They’re, very very red – way too unnaturally red. I’ve tried so many things to make them look more natural, but nothing’s working (curves adjustment helped a bit). Should I leave them as-is? Frankly, with the skin touched-up, she looks more like a China doll than a baby. Maybe the lips should stay as they are as a reminder that she was real? I’m at a total loss here, and I apologize if this is not the proper forum for my question. If anyone has any advice on what to try, I’d love to hear it. I suppose I could ask the mother what she thinks, but I’m not sure I can bring my self to do that…

Thanks,
Dominique
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DR
Donald_Reese
Sep 27, 2006
I wonder if it needs to stay in color at all? perhaps a soft black and white rendition with the edges faded out a bit,to create a memory type image instead of harsh reality. just thinking out loud,but you did take on what seems to be a very touchy project.
LR
Linda_Rathgeber
Sep 27, 2006
wrote:

Sorry for the long intro to my question… The baby’s face has some discoloration – the photos were taken several hours after her birth. It’s not horrible, and for the most part I’ve managed to even things out. However, I’m having trouble with her lips. They’re, very very red – way too unnaturally red. I’ve tried so many things to make them look more natural, but nothing’s working

Try desaturating the area.

Linda R.
——–
A
AK
Sep 27, 2006
You probably need to create a separate layer for the lips, by selecting the lips then using the Layer/copy command. Then adjust the color of the lips to match what you feel is appropriate, and save the composite as one picture.

This way you can adjust just the lipt color with curves or any other technique you prefer, and not alter the colors/tones/hues etc. of the rest of the image.

Alan

wrote in message
I totally thought I could detach myself emotionally from this job, but turns out I can only work on it for small amounts of time before I need a break…

A new friend of mine just confided that she had a baby 5 years ago (full-term) that was stillborn. All she has are photographs of her little girl, and they’re not great. The 5th anniversary of her death is coming up in October and she thought it would be appropriate to have one of more of these shots touched up, enlarged for the occasion. When she saw some of the work I have around my house of my own kids and commented on how impressed she was, I simply couldn’t help but to offer to try to fix up her photos for her.

Sorry for the long intro to my question… The baby’s face has some discoloration – the photos were taken several hours after her birth. It’s not horrible, and for the most part I’ve managed to even things out. However, I’m having trouble with her lips. They’re, very very red – way too unnaturally red. I’ve tried so many things to make them look more natural, but nothing’s working (curves adjustment helped a bit). Should I leave them as-is? Frankly, with the skin touched-up, she looks more like a China doll than a baby. Maybe the lips should stay as they are as a reminder that she was real? I’m at a total loss here, and I apologize if this is not the proper forum for my question. If anyone has any advice on what to try, I’d love to hear it. I suppose I could ask the mother what she thinks, but I’m not sure I can bring my self to do that…
Thanks,
Dominique
DR
Donald_Reese
Sep 27, 2006
Another thought i had would be to intertwine words that are meaningful to the mother/child into the image area. you would fade them to be just hints of ideas or feelings. words like love, gentle, tender,might be possibilities. just trying to offer ideas that might deflect some strong emotions toward rememberances,instead of reliving the day perhaps.
C
chrisjbirchall
Sep 27, 2006
Donald. In post #1 you have provided the poster with a perfect answer. Thinking out loud or not – very thoughtful.
BE
Bernard_E_Saper
Sep 27, 2006
Perhaps you should try to desaturate the lips using Hue/Saturation. Make a selection surrounding the lips and then apply the effect.
Bernie
JJ
John Joslin
Sep 27, 2006
Linda already said that. And an adjustment layer with mask would be better.
DT
Dominique_Tomei
Sep 27, 2006
Thanks for all the ideas! I tried the black & white look with a slight "pencil sketch" look, and I even added the almost invisible meaningful words (sister, daughter, her name, love, beautiful). I think the effect is beautiful. Now I just have to summon up the courage to present it to the mom. I think I’m just going to put it on a CD and let her have a look at my ideas in the privacy of her own home.

I played around with hue/saturation a bit, but I just seemed to make the lips look worse. And honestly, I don’t want to keep trying, I want to be done with this. Hopefully, they’ll like the BW.

I’ve done lots of retouching of photos for funerals, but all of elderly people, photo taken when they were alive of course. This one is way too difficult, on all kinds of levels…

Thanks again for the suggestions,
Dominique
DR
Donald_Reese
Sep 28, 2006
I think she will like what you have done. i cant see the need to look at the baby in that state and be reminded so starkly of the loss. keeping it more on the tribute side would be more appropriate after that much time has passed,but we all see things differently.

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