Hi. I'm new to the board, a first time poster, and I'd have to say that the level of expertise on photo restoration on this board is very exceptional. It's very impressive to see such skill.

I was requested by a friend to help restore a picture of his grandfather (as I have done general edits and touch ups on a variety of pictures), but I have never handled a picture in this kind of condition before. The biggest challege to me is the clean up of the mold/dust/scratches on the picture itself while bringing back the detail of the coat/face. Specifically the left side of the coat appears to have no more detail in it. Any basic tips on removing the mold/dust/scratches and possibly bringing back some detail into the subject would be very much appreciated. Thank you! =)

Hi Jay, I don't think you're going to find any quick PS fixes for this one. Maybe some of the photo conservators will be able to advise you on things you could try with the photo itself.

I've had a quick go with your picture, but it's going to take a lot of painstaking work to get something substantive out of this one.

Hello Jay,

I think Gary is correct on this one. I tried a few things and it would be time consuming as far as I am able to tell.

What I did was:
Duped the background;
took a cut of the jaw and flipped it horizontally;
patched the facial contrasts with patch tool
cut and pasted some of jacket stripes and used the patch tool to improve;
dodge and burn to lighten shadow or bring out hidden detail.

Perhaps you or someone else can take This or gary's piece and keep working at it ?

Thank you for the opportunity to work on the picture.

Sean

My effort:

Nice work Ken!

Sean

Wow... that's alot of great work out there. I wouldn't expect a quick fix for a picture such as this. It's interesting to see such quick progress. A few questions:

Gary: What kind of steps did you take to get your effect? it seems like it brought out quite a bit of detail back to the picture itself.

Sean: Nice tips! Great effort on the picture. =D

Ken: How did you revive the detail back in the coat? It looks very well done. =)

Thanks for your help everyone. =D

Hi Jay,

It's a combination of a few things.

First I duplicated the image, set blend mode to Multiply and masked out the dark areas. Duplicated this layer again, and reduced second layer opacity to about 20%.

Created new layer set blend to soft light and filled with 50% grey. Then using a soft black/white brush set to about 10% opacity, I painted into areas to darken/lighten and level the tone.

When I got it something like, I flattened the image, then created a new layer and cloned out a few blemishes, using a soft clone brush set to about 30% opacity (this allows you to part cover blemishes, allowing some of the original texture to show through, build up to cover more distracting areas). Mostly I did'nt have Aligned on, and cloned from an area on his cheek.

Lastly I flattened the image, duplicated the flattened layer, and applied Median filter to even out tone, then set blend mode to darken, and adjusted opacity of layer to give best result.

Hope this helps a little, good luck with your restore. Keep us posted as to how it comes out.

it is so frustrated to handle this picture. just my another try.
realaqu