I am new to this site, I hope to learn lots here. I am also new to photography and editing
I have this picture


It is the only picture my dad has of his grandpa. I really want to fix it for him but I dont knwo where to start


Let me know if i didnt post in the right section, or if the photo isnt big enough

Do you have the original scan? It looks like some editing was already done in the past on the clothing.

What editing program are you learning -- it will help members to know how to recommend steps for you to take to work on it.

This is the origional scan. I havent done anything with this one. I am using Adobe Photoshop Element 5

I moved your thread to this Image Help forum where you may get more attention to your problem image.

I moved your thread to this Image Help forum where you may get more attention to your problem image.
thank you
i appreciate it

That's a tough one for me. I'm using Photoshop elements 6. I don't know how the scan or the original pic looks on your end but the example you posted here is very small so it's hard to work with. I zoomed in to about 700% to look at the faces and so it gets very pixilated. You can see here the complete loss of detail in the eyes, clothes and such. If the original photo has more detail to it then fixing it should not be much of a problem.

A much larger picture would be nice to work on and for proper evaluation.
Turn off all automatic settings on the scanner and rescan at the highest resolution.

If you have a larger image, or as OlBaldy recommends, can rescan it per his recommendations, you could post the larger version for free (have to sign up first) at photobucket.com or other such sites -- then post a link here in this thread to the site that is hosting your larger version.

The eyes are hidden in shadow, but perhaps in a larger version, there may be a hint of them -- the eyes are so important to making a restoration realistic. The clothing detail is mostly gone, but re-creating (inventing) some details there could be acceptable.

It's a very nice thing to do - restoring the only reminder of a family member. The best that might be possible would be a black/white version and that could be re-colored for a color version if he wanted.

I'm hoping that you can upload a larger copy, but in the meanwhile I guess I'll dare to show what I've done with the small version. (I KNOW that as soon as I upload this, one of our good retouchers will upload their version and I'll have to sneak back and erase mine :) )

I'm not good at even seeing the actual curve of his shoulder and arm around her shoulder, etc. -- so this can be done better by folks here who are good at restoration.