Hi Guys, This photo I’m posting is a real head banger.

I have been doing a bit of volunteer restoration work on a Genealogy forum. So there are some great old photos that people post for me to attempt to repair. Occasionally someone will post a picture that is, well almost beyond recovery, at least that is what I thought until I seen what was being achieved on this forum. I have had a go at this one but I only seem to be able to highlight the ghostly figures a little bit by selecting them and adjusting the levels.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated as this sort of photo is being posted a fair bit.

Here’s a link the forum where I have been attempting to learn as I go.
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/board,298.0.html

deadants

Hi deadants, what a great forum - and a challenging photo!

Do you have access to a higher resolution copy? I tried trimming the photo (just to make it a quick attempt) and pulling out the blue channel which seemed to have the most information, but mostly what I get is a whole lot of jpg noise.

It's hard to tell what's possible at this low resolution, but I think most of it will just have to be painstaking retouching work with clone, heal etc.

ps. There is supposed to be another child in there?? I'll be really impressed if someone manages to pull that out of the picture!

Hi Caitlin,
Well the second figure eluded me for a while but I finally saw her on the left.

Unfortunately this is the only photo I was given so it’s a ‘go with what you got situation’. I will ask her if she can rescan it an send me a larger copy, but as my previous post says, most of these people have little knowledge of scanning or digital graphics at all, so it can be a bit frustrating at times. Anyway, here’s my attempt, poor as it is.

deadants

most interesting.... and i'll tell you why in a bit.

caitlin's right. a better scan would be quite helpful. in fact, on photos like this, you want to scan in the very highest possible setting, even if you end up with a 75 meg picture. the higher the better.

also, ask your friend to make sure the scanner bed glass is perfectly clean. this can make a big difference at times, and on this one, you want every possible data bit coming through correctly.

ok, now for the interesting bit. working with deadants 2nd attachment, i noticed something which didnt quite look right to me. the girl on the left seems ok, but the person on the right seems dis-proportionate to the tub they are both ostensibly in. so, i think what you've got here is something of a rare bird. it's a hack. but it's not a digital hack. it's a photo/darkroom hack. the person on the right was placed into the shot AFTER the shot. now, bear in mind that that photo is so deteriorated, that i could well be wrong. so, this is only a guess. there are a couple of other clues to this, but again, that photo is so far gone, that those other clues could just be deteriorated film and not clues at all. still, every time i look at this photo, it just doesnt quite look right. cute.

K.

I am definitely going to have to get my glasses checked!!

Here is my "hack" with a little photo magic for the face. however, I saw the left child with arms over the tub (elbows leaning on it so to speak). Anyway, I missed the cat's face, so, i expect i have this one wrong too :nod: :bawling: :depressed

Anyway, here it isssss

Sean

Hi Kraellin,
Yes, I totally agree about the scanning to maximum size, I have asked her to rescan it so I can have a good look at the detail. Your theory of the photo being doctored may be correct but I thought I could see her knees tucked up in front of her.

Do you think this may be a case of artistic license is taken to recreate from scratch

deadants

Here is my "hack" with a little photo magic for the face.

Oh - for a minute there I was stunned to see the other little girls face, and was wondering what you had done to bring it out, but is that 'magic' a bit of creative addition??

is that 'magic' a bit of creative addition??
No magic about it. She was always there. You just have to look at the original for a while. If you clink on this link below you can see her original post and that's what I was looking at.

deadants

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,31111.msg196270.html#msg196270

No magic about it. She was always there. You just have to look at the original for a while. If you clink on this link below you can see her original post and that's what I was looking at.

deadants

http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/topic,31111.msg196270.html#msg196270

Ah - but I think Sean's version has the detail of eyes, nose and mouth that isn't appearing elsewhere?

I'm confused, whose Sean :confused:

Sorry I now know who Sean2 is, Thathat's wat happens when your doing three things at once. :dizzy:

I am definitely going to have to get my glasses checked!!

Here is my "hack" with a little photo magic for the face. however, I saw the left child with arms over the tub (elbows leaning on it so to speak). Anyway, I missed the cat's face, so, i expect i have this one wrong too :

Sean

Hi Sean,
Wow that's a completley different perspective on the second girl. It's funny how everyone sees different things in these photos.

deadants

Actually deadant that link to the original image did help - though the version you have posted here is bigger (file size wise) I think the second compression may have added a lot of extra jpg artifacting. That's the big problem with JPG - everytime you save you add rubbish :sad:

I had another go - now I can see that knee as well I think! In fact the second girl is starting to become reasonable clear as well :nod: (Ain't photoshop great!!)

I think that's the Tub rolled edge at the back. If I can get a really good scan from the owner maybe we can have a decent look.

I agrre with you about jpeg artifacts. They make great for emails but nightmare for restoration.

deadants

deadants,

i've been studying this pic for a while and i took what you said about the knees being tucked up and you may be right. that does explain some of what i'm seeing. dont know :)

i've also been trying different filters and effects and so on and i believe i've come up with yet another version of the girl on the right. interesting that we all are seeing her in different ways. also, i dont see the evidence for sean's version, though, the evidence for ANY way is pretty scant.

i'm including an outline pic and without the outline. see if you can see what i'm seeing without the outline.

also, i'm pretty sure that dark smudge on what appears to be the top left part of her head is not actually part of her head, but rather some sort of deterioration mark. it could just be the hair color went bad on the film there too, since it does seem to trace fairly true to what her head form seems to be.

shld be quite interesting to get a better scan and see what this really looks like :)

K.

Hi Kraellin,
Gee, this photo has more twist and turns after everyone has a look. I think whichever position the left girl is in, a heck of a lot of artistic license is going to be used. Did you use a pencil tool and graphic tablet to trace around the edges?

The owner of the picture emailed last night asking me how high to scan the photo, so hopefully in the next day or two I may have something we can have a good look at.

Getting away from the girls for a bit, is there any ideas on what that thing on the right in the background is?

deadants

Getting away from the girls for a bit, is there any ideas on what that thing on the right in the background is?You mean behind Joan? Looks like it might be a pile of towels/sheets/laundry? I wonder could they be outside on a veradah? (Just based on the plant in the other corner)

Towels and sheets would make sense. I think the objet on the left is some sort of table or trestle.
I don't know whether it's inside or outside, but the owner of the photo lives in England so if it's outside it would probably be mid summer. Living where I do, anything below 19 degrees C is nippy. :wink:

deadants

yup. this one is a toughy :) and definitely interested in seeing if a better scan will bring out more.

btw, i didnt even include the other view i thought maybe was there. in your reddish image you posted earlier, i could also see the girl in question with her head turned to her right, looking to our left, with her right hand up in front of her face.

yes, i just penciled in that outline to show what i thought i was seeing in the un-penciled image. it's just a rough sketch to guide you where to look in the other image.

no doubt, if we do get a better scan, we'll see the real image is the girl with her head underwater or something :)

oh, and what did you do to get that reddish image you did?

K.

oh, and what did you do to get that reddish image you did?


All I did was select the rough outline of the girls and look at the levels histogram and just darkened the levels of the selection. Nothing fancy, just a quick highlight trick.

deadants

Hi,

deadants,

Welcome to RP! :pleased:

Just to stir a bit more confusion :D , here is what I saw in your picture...
in my opinion the girls are in an outdoor tub (could be in some South Mediterranean country (or some exotic part of the world...). At the sides of the tub I made out only plants (some long leafed(? did I say that right?)) .... and I think that the 'feature between the girls' heads is an ornate outdoor wall water tap....

Muriel seems to concentrate on something hidden in the tub or to be sulking .... and, in my opinion, her arms are kept close to her body .... Joan seems to be holding one knee...

I strongly blurred some of the body parts to emphasize what I saw ...

plant to the left of muriel, yes. and to the left of that, a bench.

hadnt seen the faucet before, but yes, and in doing some work around that, i could even make out some writing above the spigot... 'LAGREB' ?? ... 'LARUL' ?? the manufacturer maybe?

plants on the right, yes. one is a daisy-like flower in full petal.

to the right and up from joan's head, i'm guessing not towels, but a cut rock face of some sort.

i concur on joan's knee now also and am abandoning the idea of a hacked photo...mostly :)

i cant quite buy the image of muriel yet. what i've been finding for myself is that i tend to use filters that enhance my first impression, thus backing up my own suspicions. i also think that too many filters and so on can give you just about anything. at one point i was seeing flowers growing up the side of the tub ;) still, it's fascinating to see what everyone else is seeing that i didnt. i also get the impression i'm working with one of those images where if you look at it one way you see one thing, but look at it another and you see something else, like the old vase and the woman's head image.

i also did some google searching on that faucet to see if i could find anything that matched. no luck. couldnt find anything relevant on 'LaGreb', 'LaRul', or a few others either :(

ok, i'm pretty much spending too much time on this one :) gonna have to wait for a better image.

K.

Thanks Flora for the welcome to the forum. I have been meaning to join in since last year when I first registed on this forum, but I have just been to busy on the genealogy forum http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php/board,298.0.html As I said in one of my first posts, these people are more interested in researcing their family history then learning how to use graphics software so that's what I have been doing, helping them with their old photos that they are finding from lost relatives etc.

Gee that strong blur gives a good idea of what is going on in that tub. She's probably looking for her rubber ducky :classic: I'm realy impessed by what you guys are coming up with, I have had to look at this from a whole different angle.

I can't seem to make out the writing on the spigot Kraellin. Could you attempt to highlite it so I can see what you mean. I think the broardleaf plant could possibly be an aspidestra, they were a popular Victorian indoor plant.

I have just sent the photos owner another email asking how the enlarged scan is going, so we will have to wait for the reply. Also I have put a link to this forum on The Rootschat forum so some of it's members who are just starting out in photoshop, can come and join in here. They will learn more from you guys than anything I can teach them.

deadants

You are most welcome deadants!

Glad you decided to join in, and what an interesting place is rootschat.com !!
...i tend to use filters that enhance my first impression, thus backing up my own suspicions. i also think that too many filters and so on can give you just about anything...I couldn't agree more .... I've seen it done a lot .... but that's not what I usually do ... I always tend to remain as close as possible to the original .... Given the terrible conditions of this particular image, I did partially 'overblur, but only what was there in first place .... :happy:

flora,

my apologies. i meant no accusation of anyone or their techniques, unless maybe of myself ;) and when i said the thing about not being convinced of muriel, i simply meant of anyone's version, including my own. it's just too inconclusive yet.

deadants,

i had a pretty good render of the faucet, but killed the pic by mistake in an undo sequence. i'll try and get another. something about sharpen lightly, clarify, high contrast, despeckle, de-interlace, light median filter, light texture preserving smooth...or something like that :) i've done so many on this pic that i've lost track. i do have one saved that shows it a bit, but not as well as the one i killed. if i cant re-make a better, i'll post the lesser one.

and just as an aside, i was in the store today, Staples. they had photoshop cs...$649. tempting, but not yet :)

K.

ok, i did another one, deadants, and labeled it a bit. i also noticed that where i put the faucet and faucet label text, seems to be over yet another plant. i think that whole back area is a rock wall with garden on it, which would well fit the mediterranean theme we've assigned to this. i'm dying to see how wrong or right we've been on this :)

K.

p.s. looking at this again just after i posted this last pic, what i was calling a rock wall may well be a planter of some sort, or even a cistern? it seems to have more of a defined shape than just some cut rock.

While it could be outside as Flora suggests, it looks to me like it is in a strongly lit basement. To the left is some machining equipment, perhaps a lathe? There's nothing interfering with the bottom of the tub which suggests it's sitting on concrete. To the right and above the girls head looks like a classic Pot Bellied Stove. Or not.

Cheers
Dave

Hi Duv,
The pot belly stove sounds like a good possability. It makes sense to have a ready supply of hot water on the go.

I have just received the file from Joan in England and this is what she had to say.

It was very interesting to read the discussion on the other forum and it would be fun to see where it is taking them. It certainly is a very faded photo. Attached is a larger scan of the original, if you need a bigger please email.

The picture was taken after 1909 likely in Kent, England where the family was living. The two girls are the half-sisters of my great-grandmother and at the moment I don't see to have dates for them.

Looking forward to seeing what else everyone comes up with !

Thanks
Jessica

So mabe our mediterainan thought have just flown out the window.

Hopefully with the larger version we will see a bit more detail.

deadants

Hopefully with the larger version we will see a bit more detail.No attachment here? Will you be posting it?

Hi Caitlin, here it is

deadants
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v338/deadants/TubKids-1.jpg

Kraellin,

no problem .... :) ... It's just that I feel very strongly about it .... Surely the fact that 'in real life' I am a professional translator, mainly of legal documents, and any kind of 'poetic license' is an absolute NO NO in my job, has greatly influenced my attitude .... :grin:

As for our 'Mediterranean' theory .... I fear it has been shattered by Jessica's informations about the probable location!!! :o: :o: ...

Dave,

Your 'Pot Bellied Stove' sounds like a very good possibility .... even though I can't really warm to the basement idea .... I don't know if at that time you could have 'strongly lit basements' .... but what really makes me doubt is the presence of plants and flowers .... Gosh .... this is really getting very interesting!!!! It feels to me like being on a forensic team .... :pleased: :pleased:

deadants,

....thank you so much for taking the time to keep us informed and for posting the larger scan .... :pleased:

I'm afraid I can't see anything new in the bigger scan. :( How frustrating. If only we had the technology of 'CSI: Crime Scene Investigations' :)

oh my. there's just a tiny bit more detail in this over the last one. umm, and why is it so bright? deadants, could you ask your english friend if this is fairly representative of the actual picture, especially as far as the brightness is concerned?

flora, my concern over your heavy blur isnt that you're making artistic arguement, but that the program is. with this photo being this faded, a heavy blur would tend to slur what little detail there actually is and possibly alter it. that's all. that that may or may not be the case, i dont know. all of these interpretations are quite fascinating, and yes, i'm beginning to think we're in an episode of a forensic television show :)

i dont see the basement thing either. like flora says, too many plants and too much lighting, but hey, for all we can REALLY tell, it might be inside the Taj Mahol :)

i'm working with the new scan, but i'm really not getting much more than before. i do have another possible look for Muriel, one where she's turned her head even more to our left, but it's stretching things, i'm afraid. i keep trying different filter combinations and contrasts and so on, but nothing more is really coming out so far. the plants on the right do seem to be true. the faucet still seems correct and the label over it. i think i can even make out some bit or ornate work above the faucet label, but it's pretty faded, so not real sure. the item on the far left does seem to be a bench and that 'planter' on the right of joan's head does seem to be a planter or large basket.

if i can get a good image out of this, i'll post it later on.

K.

Having looked at the picture some more and doing a little more research, I'm convinced the picture is exactly as Flora says. I now suggest that is not a Pot Belly Stove but a large garden urn. The highlight on the bottom right of the tub, the way the light falls on the childrens bodies plus the shadow detail under the right side of the tub and under the bench suggests a high noon sun slightly forward and to the right of the picture. I think this picture may also be from a wealthy family as least from what I gleaned from this historical note. All very interesting and seemingly plausible.

"In 18th century France, tubs were actually sometimes placed in the gardens of wealthy landowners as depicted in this antique zinc model. When they were drained, the water fed the vegetation.

Legend has it that later, luxury homes in England built baths that overlooked the gardens surrounding the estate, in rooms that came to be called "garden rooms." They are roughly equivalent to what today might be called a "sun room."

I'm with Duv on this one. My contention is that it is taken outside. It is at mid-day, approximately. The lighting on the face and the strong shadows under the "bench" or "ladder" indicate that. Those are plants next to the tub. I also think the object behind the tub is a garden ornament much like those copies of Chinese Pagoda ornaments you can get here in the States.

k

I tend to agree that it was definitely taken outside in a garden. I think what we thought was a pot bellied stove is more likely to be a large flowerpot. Also the palm like leaves could indicate it was in a green house. Having this information, what can be done to give this photo a bit more impact? As Flora rightly alludes to, using artistic license is altering historical fact but in this case I think a certain amount of reconstruction is unavoidable if this photo is to be enhanced.

Kraellin, I will ask Jessica if the scan she emailed me is lighter than the original.


deadants

This might make things a bit clearer on the inside outside theory. I just received an email from Jessica with the following photographs.
looked through some more old photos of that family for urns and I think I found the background--a prosaic alley or courtyard. Note the urn, steps and flowers in these pics, it seemed to be a favourite place to take pictures.

Jessica

Bingo Deadants. Also, not only do I agree with Flora that the pic is outside, I'm pretty sure that there is some pretty neat stuff out there that supports blurring as an excellent way to recover badly pixelated data. Don't ask me where I saw it though.

Cheers
Dave

Sorry to get back to this so late .... :o:

Caitlin,

CSI is incredibly popular over here too!!! I've been watching it from 3 different countries.... Italy, UK and South Africa!!!! (that's where I got the 'forensic team idea...) :wink:

Kraellin, Dave, Ken, deadants,

I agree ... Bingo!!! .... one mystery solved!!!

Alas it might be the only one ... at least for me .... I've been working on and off on the new scan (medium and large size) ... and, if possible, I could see even less than before ..... well some of the background has more details ..... but the main subject, the kids, are as elusive as before .... particularly Muriel .... the bits that count of her face are just not there!!!!

Sorry .... I'm posting what I got from the last scan to show what I mean .....

i think we've solved the puzzle over the item to the far left, the stairs/ladder item. i thought it was a bench, but the corralating pictures seem to say otherwise. as for the 'pot' behind and to the right of joan's head, i'd say we've now got collarborating evidence on that one as well. nice :)

yup, muriel is the connundrum. i've worked and reworked this thing and still cant definitively say for sure. i apply one technique and i get the face one way and then do another attempt and see something completely different. i shld post a series of pics to show you, but i might overload the site at this point :)

deadants, any additional info you can get from the originator would be useful. also, if the original photo is truly being represented in that latest scan, we may just be out of luck. on the other hand, perhaps she'd be willing to actually send you the original and let you scan it? it might turn up something else.

K.

here's a VERY speculative other look at this thing. i'd almost always seen her right arm (muriel's) as being down like her left arm seems to be. but on working on this again, i saw something a bit different. what if her arm is up, cocked so that her elbow is on the tub rim and her hand up against her head?

also, i found something new in the pic a few days ago, but hadnt posted about yet. there is an insect wing and leg that appears to have been impressed into the photo at some point. it's not part of the original photo; it's an insect that got actually got onto the photo and died there and left an impression of its wing and leg. i've marked it in this upload, along with the muriel parts i mentioned.

amazing what we all 'see' isnt it :)

K.

Well it certainly has been a different and interesting exercise. But as Flora points out, the detail in Muriel’s face is just too far-gone to do anything with. But I must say Flora, you have done a great job with the limited information you had to work with and I'm sure if I post your effort on the rootschat forum, Jessica would be pleased to see how far it has come.

Kraellin, I think it will always be a mystery as to the true position of Murial's arms and head. Maybe if we had all that fancy lab equipment the CSI team have, we could tell if she had a birthmark :happy: I wonder what it would look like under ultra violet or infra red, would it show any hidden details? I must admit I still can't see the insect but I'll take your word for it.

Hopefully a technique will be available in the future to resolve the hidden detail, I suspect that it would have to be a chemical process on the original photo as digital reproductions would be useless. I don't think raw Photoshop muscle is going to get us much further, short of artistic interpretations.

Anyone who wishes to add some artistic interpretations, go for it. I would be interested to see what could be done. Consider it a challenge.


deadants

I don't have anything to offer in regards to helping restore the picture, but I must say reading this whole thing was very interesting. The picture has an eerie feel to it being old and discolored. The stuff you guys have done to the pictures were really good. I especially liked the one Flora did off the new scan. Good work guys.

Well, right location wrong time. Here is Flora's version in the location we think it should be. The scale of the two pictures may be a bit out but you get the idea.

deadants

Sorry to get back to this so late .... :o:

Caitlin,

CSI is incredibly popular over here too!!! I've been watching it from 3 different countries.... Italy, UK and South Africa!!!! (that's where I got the 'forensic team idea...) :wink: And enjoyable except that you are laughing at how implausable the use of technology it is every 5 minutes!

I don't know if anyone has seen Stephen Poliakoff's Shooting the Past (http://www.kessler-web.co.uk/Guide/ShootingThePast.htm). This discussion has reminded me of the series - particularly of the memories and history lingering in images. What a fascinating story this photo could take us on - how did these little girls live, what were their dreams. One child went on to take her own life - what did she dream of that never came true. This photo is really quite haunting and evocative, particually with their little faces and bodies fading away.

Shooting the Past also made you think of the lives of the long gone faces looking out at you from faded images - though of course it was another series where I coudn't help but go 'oh - come on!' at the rather far fetched research discoveries that could be made in a photo archive (working in a film archive myself - I know it just isn't quite that neat!)

Well, right location wrong time. Here is Flora's version in the location we think it should be. The scale of the two pictures may be a bit out but you get the idea.Fascinating. I think you've got it dead on there.

*edit* cool - I just became a 'senior member'! That wasn't hard! :tongue:

Hi,

Kraellin,

I usually define myself as a "bloodhound" .... once I get my 'nose' on a 'scent' I follow it to exhaustion ..... :tired: ..... but you are a born researcher!!! :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

deadants,

great idea of merging the pictures .... it really gives us a very clear view!!!!!
If/when you decide to post my 'effort' on the rootschat site, please, tell Jessica I'm sorry I couldn't help more .... but, suddenly, the 'scent' had vanished!!! :sad:

yuppicide,

thank you so much for your great comment!!! :pleased:

Caitlin,

unfortunately I haven't seen that series .... hope to get the chance!!!
Congratulations on your becoming a 'Senior Member' !!! :pleased:

Kraellin,

I usually define myself as a "bloodhound" .... once I get my 'nose' on a 'scent' I follow it to exhaustion ..... ..... but you are a born researcher!!!

flora,

well, that was the kind way of saying it. i call it compulsive to an extreme :) but thank you :)

deadants,

most interesting combination and it gives me another idea. oh, and the 'insect' circled in that pic is actually an 'insect wing' and back leg. the rounded back part of the wing is facing left and it tapers down a bit to the right. the 'leg' sticks down from the back and bends to the left. it's circled in that pic. oh, and deadants, did you ever get a reply from the owner about the luminosity/intensity question i asked?

congrats, caitlin :)

K.

alright, like i said, deadants gave me an idea. here's what i did:

i took the tubkids-1 image and made a duplicate image. i turned one of them into a complete negative image. i then combined the two images using the 'arithmetic' feature in paint shop pro, with the 'add' arguement as the combining routine. this produced a very interesting result. sadly, to post here, i had to cut it down in resolution by quite a bit, so a bit of detail is lost, but i think i can now say that muriel's right arm is definitely down into the tub, and not cocked like i had in my last picture. her entire outline seems better in this one, though facial detail is still quite lacking. even the way her head may or may not be cocked or turned is still speculative. but i do like this result.

i do have server space at a remote server if someone wants the uncompressed version.

K.

wow. this 'arithmetic' function is great. here's another rendition of the negative image and the tubkids-1 image combined with yet a different arguement; this time with the 'and' arguement. this one is even better than the last!

K.

and here's another with the blue and green channels combined from the last image. there's very little compression on this one due to the limited color array.

K.

I started to reply to your comments early on today but it has been a crazy day. Well the arithmetic' function is new to me as I only have Photoshop CS on my Mac. But it has produced some interesting results. I haven't as yet got an answer on the luminosity/intensity question but I will send her a reminder. I have still been playing around with this image and as Caitlan says, it is haunting in a way. I'll probably be still comming back to it this time next year to see if I have learned anything new that I can add to it.

deadants

deadants,

yes, the arithmetic function is new to me as well, but it was getting to be a case of when all else fails, read the freaking manual....so i did (well, parts of it) :) and that led me to the arithmetic tool. i do wish the manual had provided a bit more detail about exactly what they do in that tool, but it did produce some interesting results.

re the luminosity/intensity question, ok, let us know when she replies. that last scan just seems too bright and i just want to check if that's how the actual photo is also.

and yes, i tend to put this one down for a while and then come back to it also. the 'haunting' aspect is true for me as well. there's just something about a good mystery that makes it difficult to walk away from :)

K.

bump!

any more info on this one, deadants?

K.

Hi Kraellin,
Nothing yet. I do hope she hasn't forgot. I will send her a PM on the rootschat forum and jogg her memory.

sometimes you just have to walk away from a work and let it simmer.... or learn new techniques and then come back. well, i've been studying and have some new tools so i thought i'd give this one another try. i can now see a bit more and can also say that i have to agree with flora's assessment of muriel. she does seem to be facing to our right with her head tilted down a bit.

i ran this starting as normal with a dupe layer and contrast/brightness applied to darken the whole.

then i ran the fast fix filter plugin to get a bit more detail

then i ran channel mixer to bring out just a bit more.

but then i veered. i saved what i had as a new image and ran it through the polaroid dust and scratch program. i ran this several times concentrating first on the white specs then the black and doing various sizes and detection levels. after the very first pass i got a LOT more detail out of the background, but i didnt save this by itself. instead i kept making more passes and saving over the last ones for a cumulative effect to try to 'find muriel'. as each pass was made it became more and more clear that muriel was as how flora saw here with her gausian blur.

it's still not totally conclusive. there's just too much gone to ever be so, but i think flora had the right of it :) the only question left is why did i ever think otherwise ;)

Craig

Hi Kraellin,
I must say you are like a dog with a bone with this image. I think this photo is at the extreme end of the photo restoration spectrum. To have resurrected Muriel to this level is an achievement in itself.

I went and had a look for the fast fix filter you mentioned, but it is only available for the Mac in the old OS 9 software, so it won’t work in my version of Photoshop. I hope they upgrade it to OS X standard soon.

I haven’t been around the last few weeks as I have had the flu. When I thought I was over that, I came down with a head cold. I’m now looking for some good cleaning agent for my new 20” Apple widescreen display, as I sneezed and sprayed the monitor. I hate winter.

deadants

deadants,

you can find the plugin filter here: http://www.cybia.co.uk/fastfix.htm it lists it for windows and mac but i dont know what versions of the mac it will work for. if you already went to this site, why then, i guess yer out of luck on that one. it really doesnt do anything photoshop cant do already; it just does it all within one filter interface.

hehe, yeah, that was one of the first ones i worked on when i came here and it just bugged me that we couldnt do more with it.

hope yer doin better soon, mate :)

Craig

Here's my interpretation of the picture in this fascinating thread.

The left side of the attachment is the original photo (cropped) in the genealogy thread. This is the best copy I think. The right side of the image is slightly retouched to make what I see clearer to you.

First, I was looking for knees. That tub is very small for two little girls, more so with that spigot in the way. Whatever position Joan and Muriel come up with, their knees are going to be up. Also, no matter how limber, they have to change position often to avoid cramping, so creative posture is not surprising.

Second, I think it likely that Muriel's hairdo is similar to Joan's. I assume they're sisters.

That's why I call this an interpretation. I "found" features I expected. They might not be there.

My biggest problem is not Muriel, but Joan's right shoulder. It doesn't quite look right. I thought this might be because Joan is holding her shoulder with the same-side hand, but is this anatomically possible without visibly bending the wrist? The biceps is in the way, but maybe a little girl with thin arms can do this?

Hi Panpan,
I really like the idea of the hand on Joan’s shoulder. I hadn't thought of this till you pointed it out. I would love to see it at a larger size so I can have a good look at your interpretation.

I now think it's her left hand crossing over; the elbow is behind the knees. Joan is protecting her modesty (or she's just cold).

well, trust me, everyone that looks at this sees something a little different. i think what you're calling a hand on joan's shoulder is part of the shadow damage that extends down across the tub. but, if i were to do another image a different way, i'd prolly see what you're seeing ;)

here's another shot. this was pre-polaroid d&s. this one shows some of the background detail more.

oh, and deadants, the insect wing is directly over muriel's head and to the left of the spigot. you shld be able to pick it up out of this one, even with the heavy jpg compression i had to do on it.

Craig