Adding missing faces to a family portrait
Frnak McKenney
I'm attempting to update a family group portrait by adding three
individual (and separately photographed) "clips" of the family
members who weren't present when I took the original picture.
Unfortunately, I'm running into problems getting the colors of the
inserted clips even close to those in the group portrait; if anyone
out there has experience doing this and has a few minutes to offer
suggestions (or an explanation of why it can't be done), it would be
very much appreciated.
Here's what I've done so far:
1) "Sliced" the group portrait into a "front" piece (those seated
on the couch and the kids on the floor in front of it) and a
"rear" piece (those standing behind the couch) and put each on a
separate layer.
(Note to Gimp developers: how about a Magic Background Cutout
script so I don't spend hours tweaking a Path to go exactly
where I want it? Something that can differentiate between a
dress pattern and the fabric covering a sofa sould be _really_
nice... <grin>)
2) Separated the people in the "clips" from each picture's
background, giving me a set of "cutouts" with transparent
backgrounds.
3) Resized each "clip" so it approximately matches the other family
members present by comparing the pixel heights of the faces,
4) Pasted in each "clip" as a separate layer, between the "front
rows" and the "back rows" layers.
Mechanically, this approach seems close to working -- the added
images fit in reasonably well between the existing people. However,
the colors in the "clips" (shot in bright sunlight against a bright
green sheet as a backdrop) really don't mesh well with those in the
portrait (indoor evening flash with a touch of firelight, tending
toward dark colors with a bit of a ?brown? tint).
I've tried to use the Curves approach from Chapter 6 of "Grokking
The Gimp" to match the colors. For example, according to the
"eyedroppper" tool one of the clips has a face with RGB values
around HSV=200/10/75, while a face in the group portrait that should
approximately match that one is around HSV=18/40/66. Unfortunately,
my manipulation of the channel Curves to get these to match has been
spectacularly unsuccessful, even to my eyes; the closest I got was a
sort of washed-out-tintype effect.
I'm not completely lost. My fallback (and I need one: The Natives
are getting a bit restless for their mementos) is to make 8x10s of
this and a collage of the missing faces and mail _those_ out
instead. But, before I give up an unpromising career in Image
Hacking, I thought I'd run it past someone who might be more
familiar with what's involved in doing this than I am.
Any hints, clues, or suggestions welcome.
Frank McKenney, McKenney Associates
Richmond, Virginia / (804) 320-4887
Munged E-mail: frank uscore mckenney ayut minds pring dawt cahm (y'all)
--
The hardest test of maturity is knowing the difference between
resisting temptation and missing a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
--
Michael Schumacher
> 1) "Sliced" the group portrait into a "front" piece (those seated
> on the couch and the kids on the floor in front of it) and a
> "rear" piece (those standing behind the couch) and put each on a
> separate layer.
>
> (Note to Gimp developers: how about a Magic Background Cutout
> script so I don't spend hours tweaking a Path to go exactly
> where I want it? Something that can differentiate between a
> dress pattern and the fabric covering a sofa sould be _really_
> nice... <grin>)
Hava a look at http://www.siox.org/ - this is a new tool that will be
introduced with GIMP 2.4. If you want to try it now, get the current
2.3 development build or try the applet on the site.
HTH,
Michael
Frnak McKenney
Thanks for taking the time to reply.
On 15 Feb 2006 04:55:35 -0800, Michael Schumacher <schu...@gmx.de> wrote:
> Frnak McKenney wrote:
>>
>> (Note to Gimp developers: how about a Magic Background Cutout
>> script so I don't spend hours tweaking a Path to go exactly
>> where I want it? Something that can differentiate between a
>> dress pattern and the fabric covering a sofa sould be _really_
>> nice... <grin>)
>
> Hava a look at http://www.siox.org/ - this is a new tool that will be
> introduced with GIMP 2.4. If you want to try it now, get the current
> 2.3 development build or try the applet on the site.
I looked. I'm impressed. I've even downloaded the applet and done a
printe-to-PDF of the manual. I need to work past this color matching
problem first, but after that I'll give it a workout.
Thank you.
Oh... since you knew about this remarkable piece of software... I don't
suppose you know of any "instant color matching tool", do you? One
which would let me select two regions and have all the colors in the
second adjusted to match the first? <grin?>
Frank McKenney, McKenney Associates
Richmond, Virginia / (804) 320-4887
Munged E-mail: frank uscore mckenney ayut minds pring dawt cahm (y'all)
--
"Do not follow where the path may lead; go, instead, where there is
no path, and leave a trail." --Author Unknown
--
Fr@nk Stef@ni
> Oh... since you knew about this remarkable piece of software... I don't
> suppose you know of any "instant color matching tool", do you? One
> which would let me select two regions and have all the colors in the
> second adjusted to match the first? <grin?>
perhaps the "plug_in_sample_colorize" tool is helpful
for this purpose, you'll find it while searching the
plugin database of your installation: You open two
images (more precisely "drawables") and colorize the
left one of the dialogue window to be similar to the
right image which serves as the colour source.
As I use the german version, I dunno what the correct
path naming would be to lead you to this function, try
"Filters -> Colours -> Map -> Sample Colorize"
HTH,
Frank
(Gimp 2.2.10 @ SuSE-9.2 btw)
Hatto von Hatzfeld
>> Oh... since you knew about this remarkable piece of software... I don't
>> suppose you know of any "instant color matching tool", do you? One
>> which would let me select two regions and have all the colors in the
>> second adjusted to match the first? <grin?>
>
> perhaps the "plug_in_sample_colorize" tool is helpful
> for this purpose, you'll find it while searching the
> plugin database of your installation: You open two
> images (more precisely "drawables") and colorize the
> left one of the dialogue window to be similar to the
> right image which serves as the colour source.
>
> As I use the german version, I dunno what the correct
> path naming would be to lead you to this function, try
Thanks for this hint - although it was not me who asked this, it is very
helpful. I needed some time to understand that I have to select carefully
e.g. the skin (using fuzzy select) of which I want to change the colour,
while in the color source picture it is not as important. But one should
realize that this tool does not do a colour shift but desaturizes the
target area (making it grey) and copies the hue from the source into the
target. (Sorry - I do not know well the english technical terms.)
Ciao,
Hatto
--
To answer some questions, a Boolean value is too complicated.
(Larry Wall)
stus...@hotmail.com
you can do this as Black & White, and avoid
all those nasty color matching problems !
Frnak McKenney
Frank,
That's exactly where it was. Thank you for pointing me at it.
It took me a couple of attempts before I understood the mechanics of
how it worked. The result was a bit closer to what I'm looking for,
but even after using several different "flesh tone" samples as a
target the result doesn't seem "alive"; it has a zombie-ish grey
cast to it -- faint, but noticeable against the other faces.
I'll give it another shot tomorrow. I'm getting closer, but I'm not
quite there yet.
Anyway, thanks for the help.
Frank McKenney, McKenney Associates
Richmond, Virginia / (804) 320-4887
Munged E-mail: frank uscore mckenney ayut minds pring dawt cahm (y'all)
--
If you cannot -- in the long run -- tell everyone what you
have been doing, your doing has been worthless.
-- Erwin Schrodinger
--
Frnak McKenney
> Fr@nk Stef@ni wrote:
>> perhaps the "plug_in_sample_colorize" tool is helpful
>> for this purpose, you'll find it while searching the
>> plugin database of your installation: You open two
>> images (more precisely "drawables") and colorize the
>> left one of the dialogue window to be similar to the
>> right image which serves as the colour source.
> helpful. I needed some time to understand that I have to select carefully
> e.g. the skin (using fuzzy select) of which I want to change the colour,
> while in the color source picture it is not as important. But one should
> realize that this tool does not do a colour shift but desaturizes the
> target area (making it grey) and copies the hue from the source into the
> target. (Sorry - I do not know well the english technical terms.)
Hatto,
Thank you for providing a description of how to use Sample_Colorize;
without that -- and especially your clue on using "fuzzy select" -- it
would have taken me a lot longer to figure out how to make this
feature work.
I'm trying to fit three bright-sunlight image into a much darker
collection of faces. What I wind up almost looks as if I were seeing
the desaturization but without the hue shift. Or maybe the shift is
just too subtle for my poor eyes to pick out. I think tomorrow I'll
try working with some simpler images so I can actually _see_ a hue
shift so I'll know it's working as designed.
Thanks for the help.
Frank McKenney, McKenney Associates
Richmond, Virginia / (804) 320-4887
Munged E-mail: frank uscore mckenney ayut minds pring dawt cahm (y'all)
--
The man of science is nothing if not a poet gone wrong.
-- George Meredith, English novelist/poet
--