This is a photo of my Dad and a friend taken in the late 40's or early 50's. I have been messing with it but as a WIP it is pretty lame as I am still learning Photoshop CS3.I thought perhaps someone would take a look at it and see what can be done with it.

I would recommend that you post the result of your efforts.
Then the members here will give you all kinds of advice on how to proceed.


This is a photo of my Dad and a friend taken in the late 40's or early 50's. I have been messing with it but as a WIP it is pretty lame as I am still learning Photoshop CS3.I thought perhaps someone would take a look at it and see what can be done with it.

I would recommend that you post the result of your efforts.
Then the members here will give you all kinds of advice on how to proceed.

Excellent idea, I will post my WIP and see how I have done so far.

are those color variation on the original photo? (at the creases)

if not then i would re scan the image and try to flatten it as much as you can.
to get rid of the blue color at the creases.
it will make it easier to retouch/restore

Try this tutorial "Restoring an old photograph" (http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/?m=show&id=255) then post another WIP

Assuming your second picture is your WIP, it appears that you are tackling the cracks and discoloration before correcting the tonality of the image. Looking back at the original, there is good detail and contrast that can be corrected right off the bat. Lood at the tutorials referenced by the others and correct your tonality. Once that is complete, go after the cracks, etc using techniques you can find in various other tutorials on this site.

You have a good image that is very workable. Just take your time and follow some of the tried and true techniques. Again, check out the tutorials.. they are very good.

Thought that I would give it a shot. As you can see it needs much more work but, in any event, it may help you get to where you want to be.

Used levels, copied left side of face to right side. Some curve adjustments and some cloning to get rid of cracks. Final step was using Neat Image for the first time. Made quite a bit of difference.

Albie

here is a start with the low res you posted

Just tips below please dont think im being rude.

Albie too much editing on the man to the lefts face you lost the natural grain in the image, it looks painted a little dataflow looks better but it show to easyly that its mirrored. Dont forget to remember there are darker shadows toward the right side of the mans face due to the way the light would have bin that day. Also commosgt68, here is a tip that may help when scanning an image. If you have an image that got cresses its going to not lay so well on the scaner. so try scaning it upside down then sidways. do 5 difforent angles. then grap and pull the best parts from all the scan into one. Its a little advanced technique but is works for me.

Matthew,

Thank you very much for your comments. One skill that I don't have is the artistic one. Unfortunately everything looks good to me. Sometimes I look at what I consider a great image and others have many suggestions to improve it. To me it looked perfect. Obviously I'll never be a photographer but regardless of that I enjoy Photoshopping very much.

Once again thanks for your comments. Later today I'm going to modify that image as you suggested.

sometimes when you edit a photo so long, your eyes start to forget things, or dont notice stuff, I have my assistants all the time give me advise on my retouches. they catch things all the time i miss.

Well, I am still working at it can't really say I am making good progress but I am starting to learn some of the technics from the excellent tutorials. I just have to figure out how to lighten some of the real dark areas without washing out the entire photo.

Without spending to awful much time, here is my attempt:

Reminds me of a James Dean type. :o)

Well, I am still working at it can't really say I am making good progress but I am starting to learn some of the technics from the excellent tutorials. I just have to figure out how to lighten some of the real dark areas without washing out the entire photo.

Try the Shadow/Highlight filter under Image/Adjustments.

MJ

Been working this one off and on for quite a while, using it to play with some of the damage-masking techniques described in Ctein's book. After futzing around with trying to do the job efficiently, this is where I'm gonna stop. Just for info, most of the damage got minimized using global corrections through channel blend masks in Photoshop CS3. The rest was a little cloning/healing and a touch of dodging and burning (the latter not done too well - just enough to demonstrate that it would help). The only plugin used was Noise Ninja. If anyone's interested in detailed workflow (whatever I can reconstruct), pm me.

<C>

Excellent idea, I will post my WIP and see how I have done so far.

What does "WIP" mean? I'm frustrated with people who post in forums that use abbreviations/acronyms I don't understand.

WIP: Work in progress.

Thanks. This is not a frustration I'm experiencing only on ReTouchPro and the Web. It's endemic to the entire media community. People throw around these abbreviations/acronyms (AAs), signifying that if you don't know what this group/forum, whatever, is talking about, you're not "in."

On the other hand, if I'd gone to Wikipedia, I'd have gotten your explanation. Well, I'm lazy & I think anyone who wants to use AAs ought to give the full words on first mention of the AA, as I just did. Again, thanks.

Doug, are you listening?

you say you dont want to search on wiki for a definition because your lazy.
mybe thats why people use abbreviations/acronyms, because they dont want to type out the whole word (lazy).

its just a matter of time before you understand them.
just like any language you learn.
abbreviations/acronyms have been around long before the net

you cant control others actions only your own.
so if you want to fit in youll have to stop being lazy and search for definition on wiki like every new abbreviations/acronyms user does

dataflow: Thanks for your response. All I'm saying is it would be a courtesy to one's readers to supply every convenience possible to engage those readers.Why should I have to take the trouble of accessing Wikipedia, if the writer could simply spell out with a few keystrokes the full meaning of the AA (see my previous post re: this)?

You have to realize not all of your audience understands your AAs. I'm not about to spend "a matter of time" to learn a new language, and I know AAs have been around "long before the net." Every reader is lazy, as is every interviewer for a job. It's not up to the reader; it's up to the writer not to be lazy. You want to engage my attention? Then don't put obstacles in my way.

As far as controlling others' actions, no, if those actions by others (writings in ReTouchPro) are to engage me as a learner, the burden is on the writer (you) to provide the least inconvenience to the reader (me).

when i say "you cant controlling others actions.

i mean that asking people to change is not going to happen unless they want to.
and you have no luck in that happening anytime soon.

so your going to need to learn abbreviations/acronyms because people arent going to stop using them.

most people use them when there chatting on a chat app.
people like to respond as quick as possible and if you had to spell out every word the person would be talking about something else by the time you finished typing.

the simple fact is, you're both right. we're communicating here. that means each side has a responsibility. the speaker shld ensure that his audience hear and understand. the listener shld ensure he duplicates exactly what has been said and if he/she doesnt understand, does what's needed to do that. it's really that simple. both sides can be responsible.

however, whenever you're dealing with a specialty, a tech, the tendency of the originator is to 'speak the lingo' and he/she assumes that others will pick it up or ask or look it up. and as 'the student', it's your job to learn this. that's sort of the way it's always been. a rocket scientist speaks 'rocket science'. if you want to be a rocket scientist, you learn to speak 'rocket science'. that is pretty traditional, so the onus usually falls on the listener.

and, being that this is a peer to peer help site, we more or less expect our peers to 'know the lingo' or learn it, just as we did. that comes with the job. it's not that big of a thing to simply do a google "define: wip" is it?

also, a lot of folks arent that great at typing, or very fast, so things tend to get abbreviated quite a bit. you'll notice i often type 'shld' for 'should' or 'prolly' for 'probably'. this is done for the sake of speed. speed is good when you're going through 60 posts a day, plus the library plus the gallery and working on other forums and doing work on images. ya know? so, really, crack open the google define or wiki and 'learn da lingo'. it really doesnt hurt that much. and if you cant find it in a formal definition, just ask... like you did.