This photo (about 1920) is in remarkable condition (compared to the others) because it's been in one of those studio folders all these years. The original print is sepia. There is some gunk I want to clean up, particularly the skin. Poor Grandma has skin tones all over the place and islands of very light in very dark and some shadows that have slid downhill. I know how I'd tackle it, but I'm interested in learning how other people handle it. Maybe there's a better or faster or less tedious way I could try? I'm looking to even out the skin tone and ease the abrupt transitions from light to dark.

MJ

Quick one.
I have duplicated the background - twice.
One copy I nudged to the left 1pix & the other to the right 1pix. I have adjusted
opacity to eliminate the vertical lines & then I flatten the image.
Next, I applied Noisware & high pass filter.
I placed the original on top & ran Noisware on it too. Last, Soft Light Blend 32%.

Nice job, Chillin!

I applied Neat Image first; then copied the layer and added a surface blur filter to the image. To this layer I added a layer mask to control what areas would be affected. I finally sharpened around the eyes some.

If the original image was in sepia, I would recommend that you scan in color. Often the red channel will have less deterioration than the green or blue channel

Chillin and philbach, thank you! I learned two new methods from you and tried them both. I never thought of either technique. Expanding Photoshop knowledge seems like building blocks to me and you added two new ones to my foundation. Thanks again!

Nice job, Chillin!

Thank you, lurch.