I see, David, but pay attention to the blue tones created by RT in boats1, they do not match (I mean the sky and the sea): with such a gray-blue sky you can't have such a vivid-blue on the sea (IMO).

dinasset,

I think you are correct, but I can't blame RT - I adjusted the sky and sea separately, so it is my fault!

david.

Here is my try on the flower. I used ian's noise reduction , high pass layer, and a small touch of color in the midtones.

Fran6,

I like your result very much. The addition of a little colour transforms the picture.
You have given me ideas!
My latest attempt.

david.

A nice one David ! I like more warm colors on the flower.

Tried Lyle's Wicker then placed original above and used grain merge.

I decided it was time for me to try to colour another photograph.
I found a picture of Grand Duchess Anastasia - one of the daughters of the last Russian czar. I cropped it to head and shoulders.
There is a problem with the "mottle" effect, particularly visible on the face. Does anyone know an effective cure for this? In mild cases anisotropic smoothing or selective gaussian blur will disguise this, but a solution for more extreme cases would be welcome for anyone who restores old photos.

I used the healing tool, but it results in a plastic appearance of the skin.

I would like to see other peoples versions.

david.

Wow, David! You did a beautiful job getting rid of the mottling and coloring. I would not be able to do any better on that in a million years. She does need eyelashes and eyebrows fixed, and the shape of her right iris is slightly distorted. I do not have any experience doing that that would suffice for this picture. To you experts out there, I need a good tutorial on eyebrows and eyelashes!

I have to thank you for your beautiful contributions to this thread.
David, you did a great challenge on that photo.
I have neglected this thread for a long time, too. But I can currently add some photos from a trip to Tenerife. I'll post some photos for you play on them.

@David
I do not take your challenge on Anastasia, too difficult for me if even yourself -a very capable retoucher- did a not good job, as you evaluated your own results. IMHO better to keep the original even if noised.

@Issabella
These are my "manipulated" outcomes:




Applied my WBS then GEGL Chroma.

Pat625,

Thank you for the kind words. I had left the eyebrows and (missing!) eyelashes as the original.
I have now added to the eyebrows and corrected the iris of the right eye. I too need lessons as to how to add eyelashes!
david.

My tries on Issabella's photographs.

david.

My new manipulations, not using WBS+GEGLchroma but only my ancillary module "ColoureColour".

Thank you so much Dinasset and David. Very nice improvements.

My attempts at the latest three photographs - fairly small changes.

david.

Thank you so much David. I like your results.

My changes to the latest of Issabella's lovely photographs.
5329 - tried to remove the reflections, curves and a slight colour increase.
5300 - cropped and slight increase in colour.
5221 - mainly curves and again slight colour increase.

david.

The lion, with more saturation and local contrast:

Thank you so much David. I like your improvement in the photos. Nice job removing the reflections and giving more colour intensity.
Thanks Iarga, you have got a vivid colour and contrast, it's superb