#dewatermarking

I guess watermarks is the big thing with me, especially if there are more than one and they would block the face. Is there anything you can do if you don't have an original clean copy?

I guess I should explain the “original clean copy” thing to people first, as I remember telling you about it privately, but I don’t remember talking about it in public, I don’t think. We’re referring to a thing where--if you’re lucky enough to find a different version of the photo (usually lower in res) that’s either not watermarked or has the watermark in a different place--you can just blow up the lower-res picture/scale it to match the bigger picture and slap it underneath the picture you’re trying to dewatermark. And then erase the watermarks so that the lower-res photo’s clean areas will show through from underneath--usually the quality difference isn’t noticeable if it’s just a narrow area. Let me illustrate it here, in addition to the other stuff I do:

So when you go to, say, Fotofinder, they originally display the images looking like this when you browse their site:

But when you click the little cloud and download the preview image, they give you an image with a watermark that looks like this:

The image with the C is 493x630 px. The image with the “Fotofinder” watermark is 626x800 px. So the bigger image is, obviously, what I want to clean up. So I blow the smaller image up to the bigger image’s size so they match, and then line them up on top of each other in Photoshop:

So, from here, you can see that I could just erase the Fotofinder logo, but then I’d still have to deal with a) the images being of slightly different contrasts, and I still have little bits of the C showing through.

Luckily, it looks like the lighter, less contrasty picture is, in fact, the exact same shade as the lightened area on the watermark! Mostly, anyway. Normally, something like this would necessitate for me to select the watermark and copypaste it as an entire new layer, the Contrast and Levels of which I’d fiddle with (I always use that technique with the Gettyimages bar, for instance--I cut out a copy of the bar, slap it on top of the original and then adjust *that* to match the rest of the image), but here, I just have to colour-match the darker areas. I just deselect the bits of the C out before fiddling with the Levels, like the bit over Reinhold’s Mickey Mouse glove and that bit in the middle of his belly, and keep the rest of the layer selected and apply the Levels fiddlage onto that, like so:

Note that I’ve created a spare, unedited copy of the lowest, poor-res layer at the very start of the project, just in case I’ll have to use elements of it later. I do this with manips all the time, making a spare copy of, say, a headshot before I do any drastic changes to its colouring, so I have several old spare Connie heads I can whip out without having to go back in History (and lose all the other edits I’ve made on the image, if I just want to fix something I fucked up with his nose when the rest of his face turned out fine). Also note that I’m not using an adjustment layer on this, but working on the layer itself (Image > Adjustments > Levels).

But! Buggeration! We’ve still got bits of the C left, but they’re too tiny for me to bother selecting and applying contrast fiddlage onto, and they’re all over areas that haven’t got anything really important going on. So I can go over them with a combination of the Spot Healing Brush Tool (the little band-aid thingy) and the Clone Stamp tool. With this one, I could do it with the Spot Healing Brush alone. Like so:

But my anal-retentive little eye spots two tiny bits in here that are still in need of fixing: 

Namely, these two bits on Connie’s sparkly gay cloak. As anyone who’s ever tried to dewatermark anything knows, busy areas like these, especially ones with really clear lines or patterns (the more geometric and straight, the more infuriating--tweed is the worst) are the hardest to reconstruct. If I were *really* dedicated about this image, I would probably be copypasting these areas separately, too, making new layers of them, fixing the contrast and then erasing the bits from around them that don’t match.

But this is a quick one, and I’m lazy, so I’m just going to use a combination of the Clone Brush Tool and--and this is something you may have to resort to sometimes, with the peskiest watermarks--the Smudge Tool. So I take a tiny (5 px) brush and smudge... smudge... smudge...

This is the sort of painstaking, detailed, tiny little fiddly stuff you will sometimes have to resort to. And this is exactly the sort of thing that gives many manips their “paintedy” effect, because with tiny, fiddly detail like this, an airbrush or the Clone Stamp tool aren’t enough and you just have to paint it by hand. This is, IMHO, the best way to work with hair and, like here, with folds of fabric and other fiddly little places where using the Clone Brush would just result in a juddery, stair-like effect. (Also, *loud whisper* sometimes the reconstructed bits might look a bit different to the original, but if you keep it subtle, the chances are that nobody will notice.)

So, here. The final result. Adjusted a bit for contrast--note that this also swallows a number of flaws. Note that you can also use the Dodge, Burn and Sponge tools to deepen shadows or to brighten bits or to desaturate areas if needed.

But, of course, the more complex and obnoxious the watermark is, the crappier the end result will look because sometimes there just won’t be enough “clean” areas left to copy. Sometimes it’s just impossible, and I have given up on certain images, too. But a combination of these cut-out-and-mess-with-the-contrast fiddlages, Spot Healing Brush, Clone Brush and Smudge Tool techniques will go a long way if you’re persistent enough.

So, I just found out I’ve been royally screwed over by the benefits system here and I’ve got extra high bills and medicine costs to pay this month, and I have to resort to asking for help via PayPal again. It’s a long story, but you can read about it on my LJ post here. (No wonder I was running out of meds money earlier this year!) I’m too tired and anxious to write it down again here, but I’m furious at the way I’ve been screwed over. Absolutely furious. They owe me 450 e at least and I’d still have to pay 120 e or so to even re-apply for a benefit they cut off without telling me, and at the end of this month, I’ve got exactly 400 e’s worth of piled-up bills because they cut off that support and because my insurance bills are coming in. Complicated, but... fucking hell. There are PayPal buttons at the end of that post, so if you can give, give what you can, and if not, signal boost--it’s really complicated to explain over here and I don’t want to go into detail here, but feel free to talk about it over there.

As usual, I am offering dewatermarking jobs, for tough things like HistoricImages watermarks and the like, for 15 e a bob (see the reason for the price in the LJ post), and here are examples of my skill level at such things.

Bonita Granville’s graduation pic:

And here’s the one of Basil Rathbone and June Duprez:

So I hope that’ll go some way of illustrating what I am capable of. So, please, if you know anyone who could help, do signal boost--there are also donation buttons on the bottom of my blog.

Thanks in advance--I was just crushed to come home to this and I... I’m not going to even say anything more lest I just completely break down. But if you can help--I would be so, so very grateful.

I remember sharing this with at least one person who asked it privately, but thought I’d share in case it helps.

Namely, if you’re trying to dewatermark an image, sometimes it helps if you manage to find another version of the pic (maybe from a different agency with a different watermark, or one in lower res) and then copypaste that (and resize if necessary) over the (presumably higher-res) pic you’re trying to dewatermark, on a new layer. (I always take the opacity of the top layer I’m trying to fit over another layer down to 40% or so as I'm resizing it to get it to fit perfectly, the same when I’m fitting headshots over bodyshot heads in manips, then bring the opacity back to 100% when I’m sure all the outlines slot over each other neatly. If it’s the exact same image from two different agencies, all you need to do is just check the size of the larger one and feed its width or height into the poorer-quality image’s resizing box before you paste it onto the dewatermarkable one. I say feed only one of those measurements in in case the image’s been cropped differently height-wise or widthwise; if it’s been cropped differently in both or rotated a bit or something, you’ll still have to manually resize it over the bigger picture.) So now they’re slotted over each other neatly, right? Then, on this top layer, erase everything except the bits that go over the watermark–the logo of the firm you’ve nicked the pic from, stuff like that. (ETA: It’s even easier if you copy the watermarked layer and slap it on top of everything, then erase from over the watermark so that only the patch layer shows through in those bits.)

There will be some JPEG artifact if you’re using a lower-res pic to patch the thing, and you’ll probably need to do some colour adjusting and blending with soft brushes and clone brushing and so on to get it all to match, but the trick is that sometimes the areas you’ve retained are so small they won’t be all that visible in the final picture. It doesn’t work all the time in areas with high detail (like faces and heavily patterned fabrics), but it’s worth a shot. And of course, copypasting a new layer of the watermark itself and then colour-adjusting and fiddling with that to get it to match (really handy with the Gettyimages bar, for instance, which is only greyed out and can be colour-adjusted back to match, so you only have to patch out the letters) is the first choice. But if it’s a really difficult pic to watermark, I definitely recommend the patching trick with a different version of the same image, if you manage to find one.