Photo restoration of my Dad

[Chilihook]

This picture is of my Dad when he was a kid in the early 1940s. He's the one in the middle. As you can see in the original photo, a good deal of the picture is missing and there are cracks running all through it.

I did this resto about 2 years ago and was my second attempt at a serious restoration. I did my best to make this photo look like a b+w photo that could've been taken last year instead of 65 years ago, not to make it look olde-timey.

Please let me know what you think.

http://i21.photobucket.com/albums/b2...opal1944_2.jpg

[hawkeye60]

Very nice job, IMO.

[groovigyrl]

That looks fantastic! You did an awesome job!

[lurch]

The image posted is a little small for an in-depth critique. From what I can see damage repair was really well done. I especially liked the missing trees replacement. Good tonal spread, but the shadow areas could use more contrast - the darkest darks look blocked up. Wish I had done this well on my second restoration!
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[Chilihook]

Thanks for the comments everyone!

lurch: I would have gotten a bigger image if it was bigger. It is posted actual size which was accounted for during the resto. I figured since it was small, some of the finer details wouldn't be missed. But you are right about the darks being "blocked up." You picked up my own biggest issue with this image right off the bat!

[ratz]

Looks wonderful,you did a great job on a very difficult photo!

[tomhole]

Impressive restoration work there.

[TommyO]

I would say you have done an excellent job. You had to deal with quite a few problems... tears, stains, tape, exposure, lack of detail, adding additional scenery to the left side, cleaning up the problems with the trees... that's a lot for someone's second restoration. I would consider it a milestone and a huge learning experience.
Great work !

[Damo77]

Nice job! The only thing that struck me is that while you've introduced great contrast to the face and hands, the legs are flat, and seem dark by comparison.

I'd suggest that if you improved the contrast on the whole lower part of the photo (until the stripes on the socks were nearly as vivid white as their collars, it would look amazing!