Hello, ok i have got a picture of a mate when he was young, thing is it is the only picture and i mean only picture of him when he was young.

I have done a few picture restorations but nothing on this level, he really wants to get it looking better so he can give it to his kids at xmas.

So where do i start?

I have a snapscan 1236s for scanning and can do upto 600dpi, i use gentoo linux so will be using Gimp.

I currently have it in a weighted book to try and flatten some of the creases.

Any ideas on how to get as much detail out of image so i have somewhere to start?

cheers

Scan the image again, only this time, flip it 180 degrees. Then put each image on it's own layer (within the same file). By playing around with the layer blends, you should see quite a few of the creases are diminished. Once you have the best you think you can get, flatten, and start working from there. I suggest looking at each color channel, to see which one has the most detail/information.

Scan the image again, only this time, flip it 180 degrees. Then put each image on it's own layer (within the same file). By playing around with the layer blends, you should see quite a few of the creases are diminished. Once you have the best you think you can get, flatten, and start working from there. I suggest looking at each color channel, to see which one has the most detail/information.

Hello, so what you are saying is scan it twice the second being a flip of 180 degrees?

I take it you then mean import both scanned images in same gimp file and align them then play with layer blends?


some impressive work you have done on restorations, if i can anywhere near that i would be happy :)

OK...My TurnViki:
How can you tell which channel has the most detail? I am just learning about channels. What do I look for and how do I look for it??
When I look at them all I see is the graphic under a color of reg,green blue.. Thanks Neb

Hi Neb,
If you look at each colour channel in turn, you will notice that the green channel on this photo seems to show the best detail etc. If you use photoshop, just click the eye symbol next to the colour channel to see just that channel. I've attached small copies of each channel from this photo as an example.
Hope that helps :)

Hi Carp
Welcome to Retouch Pro

Vikki’s Post is a great start. I have a piece of glass to cover the picture on my scanner. I start the scan then rush to my scanner and press down very hard on the glass.
You could even try doing 4 scans at 90 degrees to each other. Usually setting the blending mode to the top 3 scans to lighten helps (but you can try other modes)

This should reduce the dark areas around the cracks a lot and make the restore a lot easier.

You should be able to remove all the black lines in my picture with re-scanning

Ken.

Thanks for replies, will try scanner tricks.

A question though, what do you once you have found channel with most detail?


If can increase my knowedge i may have to go back to the couple of image si have restored and see if i can improve them :)

Well, I saw in another thread for another problem to first change it to CMYK and I like doing that. I can usually find a decent channel to keep that way. So I kept the magenta channel, changed it to greyscale and then adjusted the curves. Then I worked a lot with the poloroid scratch and dust filter in little sections. I notice a dot which could be on the picture but looked like a beauty mark and I like to try and keep as many features on a person as possible. I did a really fast job on this (only about 25 minutes) so it's just a start. My girls keep swinging on my arm like a jungle gym today so it's kind of hard to work and make outlines. I won't be working until naptime I see today :lol: Anyways, I hope this helps you atleast a little.

Gimp has no cmyk support with a plugin and that not great.


I need to do some reading how to use channels.

Well done twinkissed that is awesome work!!!

Hey Twinkissed - for a fast job awesome!

Thought I would mention some techniques - I have Photoshop and don't have/know GIMP, so hopefully this translates ...

To answer the question on how to get a channel into a layer you could ...
-turn off the eyeballs on the other channels then convert to greyscale
-I think select all, then copy, switch to a new layer and paste (I never use copy/paste but I hear some people mention it)
-Use Apply Image to paste a channel into a new layer (GIMP may have something similar)
-Channel mixer adjustment layer with monocrome checked

I would look long and hard at the original to see what the bulges are doing to the shape - his left eye (right side of photo) slants counter clockwise more radically than normal variations in face shapes. It makes me think that it is the bulging paper.

-dup layer so as to have an original to compare with or use peices of if needed
-Levels adjustment layer, set white and black point to bring up to normal tonal range

Then all on duped 'work' layer - this is the best way I have found to get past the mess and still keep the texture and detail of the original photo .... make sure that 'sample all layers' is unchecked!

-Clone tool blend mode set on lighten at 100%, pick a dark line that you know is damage and sample from right next to one end, (if there is a gradation sample from the darker side of the line so that you do not overlighten) and paint over the line. In lighten mode the only thing that will be affected is the dark line. Keep this up until all obvious dark spots are removed. The trick is carefully picking the souce points.

-Clone tool set on darken and do the same thing in reverse to the light spots.

You will end up with faint damage that is blendable/cloneable - whatever your favorite technique is for fixing faint damage - without turning it all to smudge mush ... ;)

Regards,
Roger

Thanks everyone :blush: I don't have Gimp so I'm not 100% sure on this plugin but you may want to read into this and see if it would help for the CMYK or do a search on Gimp and CMYK to see if there are other options available. http://www.blackfiveservices.co.uk/separate.shtml I found it while searching on CMYK & Gimp.

If not I would use RGB and keep the green channel, then convert to greyscale. Then do a curves or level adjustment. Not sure what exactly they use in Gimp for this but something to bring the image out more but not too contrasted. As for the poloroid dust and scratch filter... I use the photoshop program but it also installed a standalone program which I have used in the past. Maybe that will help you.

I did find that cymk offered the best initial color and used color mixter. I separated the boy from the background. Levels, healing brushes, and eventually painted in the eyes.

I reconstructed the background.

I wonder if you turn the picture over and scan in the back side (which should just be plain white with the inverse crease pattern). Then you'll have an inverted scan of the creases. Then maybe if you burn the original with that and it might even out your picture and get you closer to the finished product. Alternatively, maybe you can invert and adjust the backside scan and then subtract it from the original. I'm just thinking out loud.

Bart

Twinkissed and Phil. Great job. :bigthmb:

I was waiting for Carpman to post a rescan before I tried this.
Are you going to post a rescan Carpman?

Bart.
That’s a great bit of lateral thinking.
But if you have the picture to scan the back then you may as well scan it in right. Even if your idea worked the problem is that the picture would still be distorted as Roger has already mentioned.

However you got me thinking. :dizzy:

What if we can’t rescan it?

An inverted layer would be very similar.
Now if we could create a mask to affect just the marks then you may just be onto something.
This is worth some thought. (Decrack action springs to mind to make a mask) I’ll give this some more thought.

Ken.

Bart.
That’s a great bit of lateral thinking.
But if you have the picture to scan the back then you may as well scan it in right. Even if your idea worked the problem is that the picture would still be distorted as Roger has already mentioned.


You're right, of course. When I posted this idea, the excellent idea of rescanning the photo at 0, 90, 180, 270 degrees hadn't clicked yet. That's obviously the best way to go--just taking the mean of the four scans should get rid of the shadows leaving "only" the scratches.

Bart

Thanks for all your replies, lot of ideas many i will have to try and convert to gimp method.

Will do some rescans this evening, will do 4 x90 degrees and one of the back.

All the work you have shown can be done leaves me lot to live up :)

I will try and rise to the challenge.


I have attached an image that was 2 scans at 180 degrees, these were:

Blended 50%
flattened
adjusted levels and curves
duplicated layer
top layer was destraturated,inverted then overlay blended 50%
convert greyscale
deinterlaced
despeckled

Also second third are 2 scans at 180 degrees


Still got to get my head around using channels :(


Also any advice on settings when doing actual scan itself?

many thanks.

Carpman...

I'm curious why you deinterlaced the image. Deinterlacing deletes every other line of pixels and then reinterpolates that data from whats left. In essence you're destroying half of the precious little detail you have in the image to work with.

Deinterlacing is really only necessary when the source of the image is from an interlaced medium, such as television and the field lines are obvious. Scanning the image will not result in an interlaced image. There should be no need to deinterlace.

--Racc

Carpman...

I'm curious why you deinterlaced the image. Deinterlacing deletes every other line of pixels and then reinterpolates that data from whats left. In essence you're destroying half of the precious little detail you have in the image to work with.

Deinterlacing is really only necessary when the source of the image is from an interlaced medium, such as television and the field lines are obvious. Scanning the image will not result in an interlaced image. There should be no need to deinterlace.

--Racc


opps learn something new every day :)

This trick works with photos that are black and white of have little color range. Take the photo and duplicate it. Move the bottom layer over and down a couple of pixels, and with the eraser set at maybe 50% oppacity,start to erase the hard lines and the photo below will show through to fix the scratches. Then with a n ew layer and with the "use all layers " clicked on, use the clone tool to fill in more... If you don't like a place simply erase it on the top layer... I just did a spot (and didn't finish it due to time restaints). But if you give it some time it could come out nicely.

~Nancy~
__________________________
www.fixthepixs.com

Hello, ok i tried the 4 scan trick but it seems to have more cracks than when i did it with 2 scans, tried different placement for each layer but still no better.


All have done with this scan crop and put each scan into own layer in one image convert to greyscale.

Can you post the individual images?

Ok I had to work on this a little more tonight. I used the heal brush along with hand painting and smudging. I did a slight guassian blur mask as well. Not quite finished but getting there I think. I know you didn't ask me to "do" it but I've enjoyed working on it so I hope you don't mind.

No i don't mind as it give me ideas, plus if you really wanted to work on i could give you access to original scanned images.

Can you post the individual images?


Hello, ok here are the latest scanned images in compressed tiff and jpg format, but instead of attaching them you can find original scanned images in link below.


These are as scanned but i did play with RGB levels when doing scan, not sure if this was good idea will try at default later.

What i want to do is get best base image to start with before trying out restoration techniques outline in this thread.

The tiffs are about 15mb each jpg 1mb but have also created a zip files of them, if these are too big let me know.

Large scanned images (http://www.carpconnect.net/images/retouch/)


Note the black mark on image is not beauty mark pr mole :)

looking at the original and the scanned image and work others have done the nose has more detail on one side than the other, would it be a good idea to sample good side and then use this via flipping to recreate other side of nose?

Hello, i downloaded the linux version of Vuescan to try scans again, it has more options and one which may help is when scanning as black&white is which colour to use as grey, as blue channel seems to have most detail i choose blue.

Trouble is my scanner is attached to a box which is running cutting edge linux compiler and filesystem (reiser4) which is causing problems with vuescan so can't actually get any scans yet :(

It looks like you're having a hard time getting to two images aligned (I see some ghosting). I'd recommend adding some sharp fiducial marks to the scan. Ie., securely attach the photo to some backing (white piece of paper), then put four dots (one near each corner of the photo) on the backing which will show up in the scan. Then you can align the dots when you combine the scans--you can even temporarily use a "difference" blend mode to help with the alignment.

Bart

Back again ok scanned image again 4x90 degrees, this time with vuescan which allow me more options, one of which was 3 passes.

The colour of scan is now more like the original photo and lot less yellow then xsane scan.

I took advice on alinement so there should be no more ghosting, the resulting merged image looks better but lighter, when i try playing with levels i can get more detail (darker) but cracks show up more, had slight improvement by using Gimp plugin 'sharpen (seperate lights and shadows)'

Question, how best to get more detail with out darkening cracks? or should i try touching up cracks with clone tool and then playing with levels?


many thanks

I have attached first untouched scan, second ismerged with above filter.

carpman,

there comes a point where you can only do so much with a certain tool or a certain process. i think you've hit that point with the scanning techniques. in fact, i think you hit it earlier than your last attempt. you're not going to completely fix this image with just scanning tricks. the point of the scanning is to get the best image possible so that you can begin to actually fix the image. you've gotten some excellent help on this and i applaud those that got you here. now, it's time to move on and actually fix the image.

i'd start with one of those you have on your links page, the ftp page. i think it was 0012a.tiff that i loaded up. it looks like it would be a workable image. it's very sepia colored. i used the Fast Fix plugin to desaturate it quite a bit first. after this, it's clone time. time to remove the scratches and tear marks.... and you've got a lot of them. there's just no other way around it, so, roll up your sleeves, get out your clone tool and eraser and start :)

i actually started on the background with the eraser. there's nothing in the BG worth saving so i just erased it. we can put something back later.

after that, it's clone time. start on something easy. if you're not familiar with the clone tool, then practice on a duplicate image. try different settings and approaches till you're comfortable with the process. cloning is an art. it can take some time to perfect, but you can do incredible things with it.

the Gimp's clone is not the best, but it does work. practice, practice, practice!

i'm following this thread and working on your image also, so i'll jump in from time to time and we can compare results :)

good luck!

Craig

Thanks for reply, yep i had guessed i had done as much as possible with scaninng, i am but busy tgis week but nest week am going to get busy with clone tool, like you say a lot to get through but no escaping it.


cheers

carpman,

as i said, i'm following this thread. i've done some more work on your pic. this is sort of a stage 2 result. there's much more to do, but i thought i'd post some of this as i went along. this is mostly just cleaning up the major rips and tears and with clone work. i attempt to keep textures and shadows making sense, but i'm not really trying to clean those up yet, just trying to get rid of the big tears. and no reconstruction on the missing parts yet either.

so, that's where i am currently. how you doing?

Craig

Craig, That’s looking Good.

Here is what I did

Loaded mick-0012a.jpg
Next Layer mick-0012b.jpg Aligned and set blending mode to Lighten
Next Layer mick-0012c.jpg Aligned and set blending mode to Lighten - Faded opacity to 50%
I did not use mick-0012d.jpg

Select All > Copy Merged > Paste

Then Desaturated.

This gave me a start, but probably not as much of an improvement as I expected from the extra scans.

I can’t work out what he is wearing.

It looks like a shirt at one side and a coat at the other. Are those black lines braces or marks to remove? And if they are braces why is one wider than the other?


Ken.

ken,

i'd like to see what you've got with the extra scans added in.

as for what he's wearing, i've not quite figured it out yet either. the collar on his right (our left) seems to be one of those checkered types, the old red and white. he also seems to have on a tie or kerchief like the boyscout kerchiefs. but the collar doesnt seem to be consistent with the rest of what he has on, so maybe he's wearing a coat or something over it with just the collar showing. not sure yet.

Craig

Looking good, thing is i don't have any time until next end of next to do anything.

As to what he is wearing, think the black lines are braces but as you say why is one bigger than the other?

Looking at picture i thought he might be wearing a cheque shirt and jumper over it?

will be keeping an eye on your progress to see what i can acheive.

Craig, I was a bit reluctant to post these ‘till my monitor is calibrated. (You may have to adjust the brightness)

The first attachment shows the result of mixing the three scans. As you will see, it has not really saved any work.

The second attachment is where I am up to. There is some distortion in the eyes. I will try to realign the eyes by splitting the picture on the tear.


Ken.

well, it looks pretty good so far. you've kept the integrity of the image. not sure what the distortion is you're seeing, but ok.

i was off for the weekend, so i'll pick this up again on into the week.

Craig

Hello, ok found some time to get busy with clone tool and attached is results.

next i am going to try and remove unwanted background, improve skin and attempted rebuild missing features, any tips?

cheers

Hello, ok done so more work but if any one has any tips on how to get the face better it would be appriciated.

Hi Carpman.

Hmmm. Not sure what has happened here. It looks like you have lightened the picture to eliminate some marks. Unfortunately, in the process, the contrast required to give a good print has been lost. I have tried to bring the contrast back but all the repairs then show up again.

There is a very similar picture here
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12227


Have a read at Rô's ABC and then at Flora’s method for the restore (The FFT bit is not needed with your picture)


Ken.

Hi Carpman.

Hmmm. Not sure what has happened here. It looks like you have lightened the picture to eliminate some marks. Unfortunately, in the process, the contrast required to give a good print has been lost. I have tried to bring the contrast back but all the repairs then show up again.

There is a very similar picture here
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?t=12227


Have a read at Rô's ABC and then at Flora’s method for the restore (The FFT bit is not needed with your picture)


Ken.


Hello, take your point about loss of detail, as this is learning process i going to try one more batch of scans and see what that comes up with.

As i said before i want to keep this to linux only apps and so installed krita a kde photoshop type app that supports 16bit and cymk it also comes with Cimg restoration plugin which is same as the GREYCstoration plugin for gimp. I have tried GREYCstoration and got some useful results but have not been able to find out how to use Cimg Lib to full potential, if you look as 1st link below you will see what is possible with this lib which is a lot.

There is also another plugin for gimp which may help but can't get it to compile.

http://www-sop.inria.fr/odyssee/research/tschumperle-deriche:02d/appliu/index.html

http://cimg.sourceforge.net/screenshots.shtml

http://www.haypocalc.com/wiki/GREYCstoration_en

http://www.logarithmic.net/pfh/resynthesizer

http://www.koffice.org/krita/

back to the scanner :)

Hi Carpman.

I got mine finished.
I used the four scans as I described in an earlier post and also the method described earlier.
The scans are fine. I don’t think you will improve on them.
I can’t help you with the Gimp as I’ve only played with it once but there should be very similar tools.

Hope you like it.

Ken

Hi Carpman.

I got mine finished.
I used the four scans as I described in an earlier post and also the method described earlier.
The scans are fine. I don’t think you will improve on them.
I can’t help you with the Gimp as I’ve only played with it once but there should be very similar tools.

Hope you like it.

Ken

Looking good, have gone back to original scans things looking better, your work gives me something to aim for.

ken,

that's the best yet.

Craig

I post what i have so far, getting there but need to sort out skin texture, trouble is running out of time for xmas and me rotory cuff have gone in mouse hand shoulder so limited to time spent on PC :(

Ok here is my finished picture, not as good as kens but i have run out of time, talent and know how :)


One is black/white second is with sepia added.

Hi Carpman

Thank you for your kind comments.

You have done a very good job on a difficult image.
As a last (quick) step you could add an ‘S Curve’ which will add a little more contrast.

I am not sure. but I think The Gimp has curves so you could try adding a curve similar to the one on my attachment.

Ken

Hi Carpman

Thank you for your kind comments.

You have done a very good job on a difficult image.
As a last (quick) step you could add an ‘S Curve’ which will add a little more contrast.

I am not sure. but I think The Gimp has curves so you could try adding a curve similar to the one on my attachment.

Ken


Thanks for vote of praise, the scan looks better then the picture, the picture is very faded.
Will try your suggestion.

Yes gimp has curves :) in fact it has lot in it though most is hidden away or requires plugns such as those listed in previous post.


For nothing it is a good app and if you are coming from PS there is version called GimpShop which aims to give PS look to Gimp to help transition.

The other benefit if using on linux is cpu manangment and true multi-tasking, meaning i can run a filter on large image that takes 5/10 min to complete and still open other images or check email/web with only slight slow down, can't remember doing that on windows.