First off.. I am a complete newbie at PS and repairing/restoring photos. But, since finding RetouchPro forums I feel I am learning from the members here.

The attached photo is my very first repair job. I would like the members here to tell me what I did right... and mostly.. what I did wrong.

This photo did not have much to repair. The original photo is a glossy print and it was scrubbed all over, and had a couple small cracks. Most of what I did with this photo was with the stamp tool and unsharp mask... nothing as fantastic as what most of you are doing here.

Michael.

This is the Original Picture.

Michael_M

Michael:

That's pretty darn good for your first attempt!

I do see, however, that the shadow areas (blacks) have been pretty much stripped of detail. That's usually due to overly agressive use of levels or curves. Also, there appear to be some diagonal creases still going across the middle. Those might be powerlines, though (hard to tell).

Thanks Doug. Your critique means a lot to me.

What would you have done with this photo? (aside from repairing the cracks and marks, that is.)

Michael.

It appears (from analysing your original) that some tonal pre-adjustment was made by your scanner. I normally turn everything "automatic" I can locate off on my scanner. The histogram from a good scan should have distinct tails on both ends, indicating that you've captured the entire range. Not too big of tails, though, which would indicate too much compression of the tones that are there. I also scan in 16bit mode, to grab whatever tiny detail and tonality I can. I do as many adjustments as I can in 16bit mode before switching to 8bit. I usually also scan at 600ppi. Anything more than that is really a waste of file space, at least from paper originals.

On b/w originals, especially those with yellowing, I usually inspect the 3 color channels first thing, since there's usually a noticable difference. I almost always end up keeping the red channel and discarding the other two.

I always address tonality first, since doing it later can reveal flaws in your repair work that weren't initially visible. In this case, I'd spread out the shadow values with a curve, perhaps even limiting it to the darker midtones and shadows by doing a luminosity selection (alt + ctrl + shift + ~) (that's a tilde). Then make a curves adjustment layer and the mask will be automatically installed based on the selection. Since the luminosity selection chooses pixels above 50% brightness and we want the reverse, you'll need to reverse the mask (click on it and use ctrl + i).

Normally I'd start with a levels adjustment layer to make the tones use the full range, but in this case I'd do it here, after spreading out the shadow values.

Only then would I start in on repairs, using blank layers and the clone tool set on Use All Layers.

Here's your original after only the steps I mentioned

Recompose the picture a little by cropping out some of the sky. I find my eye just jumps to that great bright expanse.

After choosing the green channel and discarding the othes I found no need to do any lighting adjustments. You may want to experiment with some sepia toning using duotones or tritones.

Thanks Ricky... I did think of cropping the sky.. and will try that along with your other suggestion on my next attack on this one.. :)

I haven't had much experience with channels yet, but, I am getting there..

Thanks again.

Michael_M