Hello...I spend all my time over at the Photo Art Forum at RetouchPro. But I was given an old photo of my husband's great grandfather, and I cannot figure out how to fix it. Apparently another old photo laid on top of this one for a few decades and stained it, and there are scratches galore.

Since it's the only photo we have, can anyone have a go at it?

(This is a post mortem photo. The guy in back on the left is the g-grandfather.)

Amy

Hello Amy

I'm afraid there is no magic bullet with this type image... at least I don't know one.

Just careful clone and healing brush tooling. Maybe a dust/scratch filter tied to a mask to use as needed. Also a neutral overlay layer for selective light.

I like to open two views... one zoomed in and the other out. That way I can get a good idea what my healing and cloning tools are doing. I also use small brushes most of the time.

I also used a few layers set to darken or lighten and medium opacity brushes to fill in some missing info like eyebrows

I did the example pretty quick but to me anyway it is a good start.

Butch

amy, this is indeed a bit of a stinker. i'm attaching an image with my first steps on this one. the first thing i did was to increase the image size by 200%. next, i added a hue/sat adjustment layer and reduced the overall saturation and a bit on the reds by themselves. i also lowered the lightness a bit to bring some contrast.

then, it was all clone of the background. i wasnt sure if you wanted to save the names on the print or not, so i left them in for now.

all this is designed to get a lot of work done in a hurry and to show up the rest of what's wrong by removing some of the distractions.

for the next steps you might loosely select out the stained area and use a hue/sat layer on that or clean up the rest of the background or start fixing the faces a bit or maybe the clothing, since that might be easier.

normally, i try to get the easier bulk areas done first. this is still at 200% so the compression had to be rather high.

craig

Hi Amy.

As Butch and Craig have mentioned, this is a bit of a stinker with no easy fix.

I made a new background
Dust and scratches filter painted on as required
Layers set to overlay to even the exposure

I have painted out the names but they can be put back if required
There is lots more that could be done. It really depends on how long you wish to spend on it.

Hope this helps.

Ken.

It is a very slow process.
I like to do a cleanup on the “original” picture first.
Then apply masks, overlays exposure fix etc…
This one is really a difficult one & I have still long way to go, but here is an early pick.

Thanks so much, everyone. Photo repair is just not my forte. I appreciate the effort! This is the only photo of my husband's great grandfather. I have figured out who all the people are by researching. The g-grandfather is the guy in back with the mustache. It was taken on the day his wife's brother died.

Amy

thanks, amy. do let us know how you're getting on with the restore. post your progress from time to time and maybe we can help a bit.

craig