This photo taken in 1941 of my mother and my grandmother.
It has a few ink stains on it and what appears to be a tape mark across the centre.
I'm new to restoration and would appreciate any help thanks :)

Steve...

I managed to remove the stains with the Hue Saturation adjustment layer. I popped up the "Edit" menu and first selected Reds and with the eyedropper (your curser turns to an eyedropper when you move it out on the photo) to pick the darkest red, rusty color in the tape. Desaturated, lightened. Popped up and picked Blue, same procedure also for Magenta and Cyan.

The rest is up to you.

Thank You Swampy :)
I've enjoyed looking at your website

hi swampy,
now don't laugh to hard on my question, it probably too simple.... smiling..

why wouldn't you first either convert to greyscale or just desaturate or use the "fade desaturate"? if one has a choice what would be the advantage or disadvantage of one meathod over another?

Steve...

I managed to remove the stains with the Hue Saturation adjustment layer. I popped up the "Edit" menu and first selected Reds and with the eyedropper (your curser turns to an eyedropper when you move it out on the photo) to pick the darkest red, rusty color in the tape. Desaturated, lightened. Popped up and picked Blue, same procedure also for Magenta and Cyan.

The rest is up to you.

Jerry,

Good question! My preference is to work in RGB with all the color channels in play. When you switch to grayscale you are basically flattening the image to one channel. Using HSB gives me control over the process (arrrgh.. I'm a control freak! LOL). I can see the changes on the screen and control the luminacity of various aspects. For example, the tape in this photo had some very dark rust color as well as some pale pinkish tone and a little of everything in between. I could control the saturation and the lightness for just that one color. The Cyan stains were not as broad spectrum so I could adjust those accordingly.

Doing a global desaturation treats all luminance values equally and there were areas of that Cyan that ended up blending nicely into the skin tones when I could adjust the lightness separately.

This is a very, very rough result at removing the scratch damage. Much more work to be done, but it does give an approximate idea at what the finished product will look like.

dc

That looks really good DCobb :)
I'm still Practising scratch removal i'm only used to retouching my own portraits in photoshop

hi,
Thank you very much.... ... I had a feeling it had to do with luminacity and channels..... it helps me firm up my work flow....if I have reason for something it helps me remember .. if that makes sense.. smile...

You may get a laugh out of this but I just noticed this one feature under edit called "fade" it seems to work in conjunction with some of the other "adjustments". I have been looking effects and image menu for so long i overlooked that one item in the edit.. there always some little jewel hidden away...

Jerry,

Good question! My preference is to work in RGB with all the color channels in play. When you switch to grayscale you are basically flattening the image to one channel. Using HSB gives me control over the process (arrrgh.. I'm a control freak! LOL). I can see the changes on the screen and control the luminacity of various aspects. For example, the tape in this photo had some very dark rust color as well as some pale pinkish tone and a little of everything in between. I could control the saturation and the lightness for just that one color. The Cyan stains were not as broad spectrum so I could adjust those accordingly.

Doing a global desaturation treats all luminance values equally and there were areas of that Cyan that ended up blending nicely into the skin tones when I could adjust the lightness separately.

Jerry, Fade is a great thing, but in CS2 it is fleeting. You only get one shot at it. Make any further changes to your file and it is no longer available, but I guess you've discovered that. Nice thing about CS3 is the ability to go back and change filters after the fact.

hi,
note i have ps cs..
yes i did notice that... the moment you change to anything else, ie; bush or hue , etc...., that little item in edit changes to reflect the main feature.. and the only way to get it back is to go back to that feature for example... let say it the main feature was desaturate you get the edit>fade desaturate but when you go to let say brush it now changes to fade brush... the only way to get back to fade desaturate is first hit desaturate and not the edit item become fade desaturate... grrr.. smiling... likeyou said it fleeting..

yes i noticed that about cs3,, when I was looking at one of the tutorials on the radiant website....
unfortuately cs3 out side of my price range right now.. smiling... but one day...
Jerry, Fade is a great thing, but in CS2 it is fleeting. You only get one shot at it. Make any further changes to your file and it is no longer available, but I guess you've discovered that. Nice thing about CS3 is the ability to go back and change filters after the fact.