This might seem easy for some. This is the last remaining picture of my Great Grandfather, and my Great Grandmother (who passed away at 27 years old). I have been trying to retain as much detail as possible on the people while cleaning the photo up. The resolution is already poor, so I don't want to lose details on the face. Every time I try to clean it up, I am always left dissatisfied with how it turns out. Any help appreciated.

25MB TIF (600 DPI) scan available at:
http://www.hotlinkfiles.com/files/1177686_bvkfw/george001.tif

Yes I went crazy with the scanning to try to preserve as much detail as possible.

I took about an hour on this. I know it's an awful job cloning on the bottom and the sky needs work. I'll post what I did tomarrow if your interested. I got tired.
I did want to post it though because I thought it was funny, I didn't realize until well into it that this is a photo of 5 people, not 4.

I took about an hour on this. I know it's an awful job cloning on the bottom and the sky needs work. I'll post what I did tomarrow if your interested. I got tired.
I did want to post it though because I thought it was funny, I didn't realize until well into it that this is a photo of 5 people, not 4.

Good job! I was thinking I could avoid the clone tool on this one, but I guess not.

But what is funnier is that I never noticed that 5th person in there! I guess not much can be done to save the details on him/her :)

Esac,
Are the shiny areas due to "silvering" on the photo ?
If so, there are some techniques to reduce the effect so you can have more detail to recover.

Esac,
Are the shiny areas due to "silvering" on the photo ?
If so, there are some techniques to reduce the effect so you can have more detail to recover.

Nope, it is just a big shiny white spot directly on the photo :(

before cloning, try a histogram adjustment and then a 'clarify'. if you dont have the clarify filter, try a shadow/midtones/highlilghts filter.

I thought I would take a try at this
Did a levels on each individual area of focus.. (couple in car, boys, boy, barn left, barn right. barn roof where they join) then masked them all together
used decrack action with a hideall mask then painted white on the white spots then Gaussian blurred the decrack layer to blend in
cloned the bushes on the bottom to get rid of the bright spot

Larger version (still needs some spotting) here (http://img203.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=52998_george001A_122_113lo.jpg)

I thought I would take a try at this
Did a levels on each individual area of focus.. (couple in car, boys, boy, barn left, barn right. barn roof where they join) then masked them all together


Could you describe to me the process for this part. How do you level out separate areas of the photo and mask them together? Is it a timely process of selecting what you want, or do you apply a layer mask, and then use a white brush to brush out the areas you want? I am using CS3.

Thanks

do you apply a layer mask, and then use a white brush to brush out the areas you want? I am using CS3.

Thanks

I had six layers... leveled each one separately ... then masked each and painted white

Tried a fake HDR then tonemapped trying to find a little more detail
(To get the fake HDR I desaturated a copy of the original then made two more copies changed those two layers to Screen mode and saved out as a new document a copy of each layer.. then changed the layer modes of the two to multiply and saved each of these as a new document plus saving a copy of the background copy as a new document for a total of 5 new documents to load into Photomatix to make a HDR and tone map)

the tone mapped into Photoshop copied background.. ran dust and scratch filter with hide all mask and painted white on bright specks to hide them
did a Sepia tone

larger version here (http://img203.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=70527_Sepia_A_122_523lo.jpg)

Tried a fake HDR then tonemapped trying to find a little more detail
(To get the fake HDR I desaturated a copy of the original then made two more copies changed those two layers to Screen mode and saved out as a new document a copy of each layer.. then changed the layer modes of the two to multiply and saved each of these as a new document plus saving a copy of the background copy as a new document for a total of 5 new documents to load into Photomatix to make a HDR and tone map)

the tone mapped into Photoshop copied background.. ran dust and scratch filter with hide all mask and painted white on bright specks to hide them
did a Sepia tone

larger version here (http://img203.imagevenue.com/img.php?image=70527_Sepia_A_122_523lo.jpg)

OMG that turned out great. I think I am going to give this a try by scanning it in at various levels and then making a fake HDR. Thoughts?

My only thoughts are.. keep trying everything you can till you get something you like!

i did the histogram adjustment and clarify to start. cloned over the overexposure. did a hue/sat to reduce the saturation to make things more even, especially the cloning. i also used push, airbrush and clone to clean up the barn a bit. i also used a fade correction early on to bring out detail.

Esac, please post your result with the different scans.

Esac, please post your result with the different scans.

Will do, I was going to work on it last night, but then just got into lazy mode and browsed reddit all night long. I should be able to do some real work tonight.