Retouching portraits for applying on granite. Trial lesson for beginners. Retouching one portrait. How to send photos for retouching

Retouching monuments

high quality engraving

Retouching a photo on a monument allows you to make a high-quality portrait for engraving. Each photo ordered from our company is retouched without fail. This allows you to improve the quality of the image, remove minor defects that are present, first of all, in old photographs, prepare a portrait of the deceased for engraving equipment.

Retouching of monuments is carried out only by professional artists, taking into account the peculiarities of our equipment. We prepare not only photo retouching for engraving, but also for transferring photos to ceramics or glass.

Retouching a portrait on a monument allows you to add clarity to the facial features of the deceased, smooth out defects, and makes the image suitable for engraving on a laser machine. A simple, raw photo digitized or digitized will be fuzzy when laser engraved. Therefore, retouching photographs for monuments is the first and obligatory stage of transferring a portrait to a stone.

Photo processing for laser engraving on a monument consists of several stages: the transition of the photo to digital format, cropping, retouching

Retouching a portrait for engraving begins with the transfer of a photograph to a digital format (if the photograph is on paper). This is done by scanning the original photo from high resolution(600 - 1200 dpi).

During cropping, the desired size of the future picture is selected. The size of the photo depends on the size of the monument. Standard sizes- 25x30, 30x40. Then they remove the background of the photograph, create a kind of monochromatic "substrate".

Retouching photographs for monuments has several advantages:

  • enhancing the clarity of the overall image and facial features: drawing hair, eyes, painting "cut" parts
  • drawing of clothes or replacement for clothes from our catalog
  • recovery and correction of damaged photos

The finished touch-up is applied to the sketch of the monument and sent to all clients free of charge. Thus, you will be able to see the layout of the selected model and how the retouching of the portrait looks on the monument.

In addition to a technical error, be it the inaccuracy or carelessness of the master, it is very important that the portrait applied to the monument conveys an external resemblance to the deceased person and pleases the customer. Therefore, all artistic engraving works are performed by the highest class masters, with knowledge of their craft.

So that the portrait does not turn out to be faceless and the master managed to capture the character of the deceased person, the initial quality of the photograph from which the image will be applied on the monument is very important. How better photography, the better the portrait will be.

Unfortunately, it often happens that the original for engraving a portrait is very far from ideal. It can be a small black and white photograph for documents or a photo of the 70s on embossed paper. Old photographs may be in very poor condition. It happens that you need to cut out an image of one person from a group photo. In this case, restoration or even reconstruction of the original photo and its preparation for engraving work is required.

It is painstaking and laborious process, consisting of several stages: transferring a photo to digital format, cropping and retouching it.

The transfer of a photograph to a digital format is carried out by scanning the original image in color (even black and white), often the same image has to be passed through the scanner several times at different angles, in order to remove some of the interference in the form of scratches and spots using the superposition of the obtained images. If the original photo is printed on embossed paper, then the transfer to digital format can be carried out by reshooting it.

The following cropping allows you to select the desired image size. Next, the background of the photo is removed, the so-called "black background" is created. In the future, at the request of the customer, a photomontage can be performed to create any background, for example, a landscape, a view of the sea, a city.

Retouching an original photo intended to be applied as an image to a monument differs in many respects from correcting artistic photographs. Retouching for artistic photographs more often smoothes out and erases details and image defects, while retouching photographs for monuments requires an enhancement of graphics and additional drawing of facial features, costume, hair, highlighting elements of clothing and emphasizing its contours. The border between the image and the background is most often emphasized by additional highlighting to enhance the three-dimensionality.

Even the type of stone for the monument (granite, basalt) influences the nature of retouching. Special attention is given to the study of the neck line, the contour of the cheekbones, ears and hair. The customer must pay attention to the eyes, in addition to a clear outline and drawing of eyelashes, they must necessarily have pupils, otherwise in the portrait they will look just like two dark spots... Correctly retouched and corrected original photo allows you to create a portrait on the stone, which retains not only the external resemblance to the departed, but also conveys his individuality, helping not to forget the family what the person was like during his lifetime.

Photo retouching service is available for ordering. To find out the cost - call the office of the company "Rusgranit"


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Retouching with curvature, and this is one of my many mistakes, unfortunately, I cannot fix it yet. Of course, I don't consider myself a master, but I really like to give lessons! Therefore, I could not deprive myself of such pleasure! Perhaps I am doing something wrong, I cannot deny, but I got it all myself, watched the video, where I learned from my own mistakes.

1. The very first thing to do is to align the photo if it is crooked: double-click on the layer where there is a lock and it disappears. Then press CtrL T at the same time. Expand to the edge. But everyone understands this, I hope.

2. The second thing that catches your eye in this photo is the uneven distribution of light. How to lighten darker areas? Which is easier - I took a clarifier and lightened everything that is darker. Only with a clarifier in the same place we can walk two or three times, the similarity is lost! You can use a vector mask in this case.

3. Create a duplicate layer by simultaneously pressing Ctrl J. And one more layer. It turns out three layers. The top layer is active. Apply the function levels to the active layer: image-correction-levels

4. In the levels, move the middle slider to the left so that the dark part of the face is lightened. Do not pay attention to the light one! Let it even turn white at all!

And now the most important thing! Below in the layers there is a so-called vector mask. Press the alt key and on this mask at the same time

5. I got such a black square near the top layer, and the image got its original appearance. Then take a white brush and paint over the dark areas of the face.

I used a brush with an opacity of 60%, because when I made the levels, I brightened the dark part of the face too much. You can't guess there the first time. But in this case, you can fix the opacity of the brush. If something does not suit you and you painted over the excess with a white brush, switch the white color to black in the tools and drag over the same place where you did not like it, and everything will be as it was before.

Press Ctrl, without releasing, select the bottom layer. Now we have two layers selected. Right-click to merge layers.

7.Then duplicate the Ctrl J layer and apply either the Surface Blur Filter or the Noise Filter to Reduce Noise. If you have a Perfectum plugin, it’s better, of course, to use it. But just keep in mind that this plugin can be used in RGB mode (image-RGB-mode), only then the plugin will be active!

A window has come out - do not merge layers!

Then another window will come out - "undo and cancel". Click on "cancel"

8. Make a vector black mask as described above and paint over the areas of the skin where it is necessary to smooth it with a white soft brush. In areas where there are wrinkles, lower the opacity percentage. And where you want to leave sharpness, you can skip brushing.

9. Let's work with a mix brush and smooth out the roughness on the face that remains. Opacity 13 percent. You cannot mix with a brush at once in all places clamped, only on each area of ​​different lighting, otherwise it will do everything for you with a gray mass.

10. The face has cleared more or less, but it has become very blurred. We need to fix this urgently!

Duplicate the layer. Always duplicate layers so that later you can delete this layer and do it differently if it goes wrong. And then the story has the peculiarity of ending at the most inopportune moment! Filter - sharpening - contour sharpening. Do not be too scary, the sharpness is not too steep. For example, I have 81% on the effect, and on a radius of 5.3 pixels. But for each retouch, the contour sharpness is different! Photos are different in quality. I use other methods for sharpness, but they are more complicated.

11. Again levels, with the alt key pressed, first move the black slider so that there is a black dot on the face, for example, on the pupils, on the upper eyelids, somewhere, maybe on the hair. And then with the alt key pressed, move the white slider so that there is a small white dot on the face. This is for maximum contrast. If some part of the face is lightened or darkened again, use the vector mask again, merge the layers. Let it be long, but the result will be!

12. We work with pens. First - eyes, then nose, mouth, wrinkles. Burner, Finger, Brush, Mix Brush, constantly compare to the original.

You can draw eyes or other facial features, so that you certainly do not make a mistake in this way: duplicate the layer with the original, sharpen it. Middle layers are disabled. And the top layer we are working on is turned on, make it opaque to the smallest percentage and paint on the top layer.

Just watch constantly so that it doesn't get too dark or lightened. If brute force, lighten or dimmer, do less in percentage, and cancel the action. And be careful: the clarifier can be both in the highlight, and in the middle tones, and in the shadows. It's the same with the dimmer. And they work in different ways! If you have left the original, you can try to make your retouching by 50% (approximate number) opaque, leaving the source with the bottom layer, merge the layers. But then again you have to remove the noise and focus. But it will be more similar! You can not overdo it with a stroke. The lower eyelids should not be as black as the upper ones. Look carefully where the darkest places in the photo are, highlight them more, and where there is less blackness, circle there, but not so much. At the end, sharpening again. Sometimes, after sharpening, white stripes remain around the wings of the nose, on the eyelids. They can be removed with a mix brush at high magnification, or you can take a dimmer with illumination settings, a very small exposure.

The face should not have the same sharp transitions from dark to light. The darkest places are in the grayscale mode up to 50-60%, the higher will be the blackness on the stone. How to view? Window-put a tick in front of the info. Looking at the upper left corner in the main workspace, the K values, but don't forget about the grayscale mode.

13 Hair. We didn’t worry about the hair during retouching, and now they don’t understand what it is! Select the hair on the source, duplicate it on a new layer, which I put at the very top and now I do whatever I want with the hair. Levels, Sharpness, Finger, Dodge, Dimmer. If you don't like it, I'll delete it. I highlight the lightest hair with a highlighting agent. Where the blackness is completely and the hair is practically invisible, I paint the hair with the "shadow" clarifier in the settings above with a small exhibit. I smooth out the mix with a brush so that there are no irregularities. And then where it seems to me that they are closest, I brighten the backlight with a clarifier. The blackness is not painted over, and the hair gains volume. Sometimes in a good photo, the hair does not have to be highlighted, from the sharpness it takes on expressiveness. I rubbed the edges where necessary with a wash. In the end, I combine it with retouching.

14. Put on clothes, painted a background. With background - a separate lesson. But nobody needs difficulties there! And I like more complicated, more interesting! But if anyone wishes how to make the background perfectly black and so that there are no gray spots around, which we sometimes do not see, but only the machine can see, I can give the following lesson. When the background is black, hair can get lost against this background. I take a bleach setting, highlight, a small exhibitor and paint over the edges of the hair. Separate hairs on top, so that the hairstyle is not so smoothed, I draw with the smallest finger, 100%, with one. If they stand out strongly, then you can darken a little bit with a dimmer.

15 There is a program for the Step machine. On it you can check any retouching, how it will look on the stone. Sometimes it happens, I will do everything as I upload it to the program - horror! I can already see where I need to highlight, where to darken, where the hair or clothes will merge with the background, where there are light spots on the skin of the face that need to be removed. In this program, there should be both black and the whitest point, and gray tones. But if there are large white spots all over the face, then there will definitely be a pancake on the stone! I can by e-mail to throw off this program to everyone. It's not difficult for me. It's easy to use, but without a machine it is a little buggy on your computer, so you need to press ok all the time. And upload images there only in BMP format.

If something is not clear, it doesn’t work, please contact me, I will answer all your questions with pleasure! Do not be afraid to seem ridiculous, I created this lesson specifically for beginners, I myself began to master Photoshop five months ago. Puzzled, where to start, where to look for lessons? And if at least one person will find any of my methods useful in retouching, we can already say that life has not been lived in vain !!! Kidding.


Retouching monuments - editing the original photographs (removing defects, making the image clear and artistic) using traditional or digital methods. We make retouching of photos on the monument and then apply them to the stele.

We carry out retouching of a portrait on a monument in several stages: scanning a photo, drawing a black background and a halo, smoothing the bottom edge, removing defects (dust particles, glare, cracks), adding brightness and contrast (making the portrait clear). After the processing of the photo for engraving is completed, it is applied to the monument. Our craftsmen perform these works manually or using a laser printer. The portrait can be matched with an artistic background, clothing and other design elements.

Photo requirements for retouching

In order for the portrait to be as similar as possible to the original, the photograph must be of sufficient quality. She may be old (from the family archive), but with a clearly visible face. To retouch a portrait on a monument, a paper photo must be scanned by yourself or the original must be brought to the office on the day of the conclusion of the contract (or in the coming days after).

Photo scan requirement:

  • resolution at least 600 dpi
  • jpg, tif or psd format
  • selection of the scanning area (so that the scan does not cover the entire surface of the scanner, but only the photo)

Note that the size of the paper photo does not really matter when scanned correctly. For retouching a monument, large portraits and photographs taken for documents can be used equally.

What affects the quality of a photo for retouching?

1. Mobile mail. When sending a photo from a phone, it is often compressed by default. When increasing to required sizes the portrait is blurred, which complicates the work of the retoucher and leads to a decrease in similarity with the original. It is better to send a photo from a computer.

2. Photos taken with the phone. Unfortunately, in the recent past, the cameras on the phone only allowed you to take a picture of very small resolution. Such a photo is retouched only in the absence of other higher quality images.

Why do you need retouching on a monument?

Photo retouching for monuments necessary condition drawing a portrait on granite. The raw photograph simply won't be visible on the headstone. Our artists make retouching based on the requirements of laser equipment. Our machines allow you to achieve maximum image clarity.

 

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