This picture was taken in a small town in Western Pennsylvania c. 1918.
The people were celebrating the end of World War I. The very charming outfits were created by an enterprising seamstress from patiotic buntings. Unfortunately, the original photo was small and not particularly clear. Time did not do it any favors. Can it be restored?

Hi Shar,

I've had a quick go at this before bedtime (5 min job) Still lots to do, but thought I would give you a sample to let you know that the image is not beyond hope :)

Nice job Alison. I wanted to give this a quick shot too. I cloned, did levels adjustment, some contrast/brightness and a blur.

This is my try.

-cloning
-healing brush
-CS3 black and white image
-selective color to remove some of the darkness from the whites

dc

I couldn't resist.

Did a curves level to bring back the original brightness/contrast. Did a selective color to pull out the yellow. Painted the sky and the tops of the trees and then used a gradient to try and balance with the rest of the photo. Fixed the holes and a few dings. Ran it through Noiseware to bring down some of the noise. Did a shadow/highlight to improve on the contrast and brightness. Y'all got much more saturation out of the bunting. I tried but kept making a mess of it.


No picture is hopeless :)

MJ

Thank you all. You have inspired me to give retouching a try. I have quite a few old photos, taken in roughly the same period. This was the worst of the lot, but you all did a wonderful job and proved to me that they are worth the time and effort to restore.
I understand that the first step is to repair tears and scratches, but how do you decide where to go from there? Does it matter if you correct color before you fix contrast and levels?
You said it took a few minutes, I envy you. I could probably achieve what you did in a few weeks.
Charlene-Is noiseware a part of Photoshop or a stand-alone program?
Again thank you all for your responses.
Shari

Noiseware is a 3rd party filter. Here is a link to the freeware version.

http://www.photo-freeware.net/noiseware.php

There is a professional version that can be purchased through the manufacturer.

dc

Here is my take.

Well, this picture allowed me to get a better understanding of the Curves adjustment option. Pretty cool how much detail you can bring out of a faded image. Thanks for the opportunity to work on this one.

Had a quick play with this.

Levels adj with graduated mask to even out tone top to bottom.
Levels adj layer to adjust contrast and lighting.
New layer and cloned out blemishes and tears.
Applied Neat Image to reduce noise.
Selective sharpening using High Pass/Soft light, masked to adjust areas I wanted.