Faded Photo - not sure if it's good enough

[dianajenna]

I posted this picture in the Restoration forum ("Very faded old photo - any ideas?") several days ago and got some good suggestions and help. I've reworked it now and would like to see what you guys think. As you can see from the original photo it is very faded and the surface is cracked all over. The biggest challenge for me was getting sharpness without overdoing it to the point of ruining the picture. If anyone wants to let me know what I could have done better or differently, I would sure appreciate it. Thanks!

Diana

[dianajenna]

Ok, so I should have re-read the instructions on uploading photos first and not relied on my memory of how to do it. So hopefully these are alright now. Sorry.

Diana

[dianajenna]

Anyone? Just looking for some helpful advice.

Thanks!

[Doug Colwell]

I took the liberty of recovering and emphasizing some of the facial details that were in the orig and painted them back into your after pic using a mask. Also adjusted some face levels (masked and painted in), some usm's (20/50/0) for sharp and contrast, and a little neat image filter to soften some noise. If I was starting this from scratch I probably would've used Flora's "Enhancing details in unevenly faded pictures" tutorial (channel mask). I then used a slight guassian blur, masked and painted it on the faces (skin only). Also the original looks like it was colour, and colourizing could help to improve the definition.

I've always found it more convincing, (and often easier), to do everything you can to avoid altering the details in the original, and to limit drawing to the areas that are completely obliterated. Half the battle of keeping the look of a photograph is in preserving as much original detail as possible.

[dianajenna]

Hi Doug. Thanks for the tip on the tutorial. I had not seen that one yet, but I definitely will. I like your version. I knew there had to be a way to enhance the facial features, but after many many tries I just gave up.

Diana