1950s Kodacolor gone mad

[sobo]

I have been retouching for only a year - but in that time have retouched some pretty worn photos - and really old ones. But, this one is quite a challenge

It is a 1950s Kodacolor photo which was sitting in an oval frame at some point. The area of the photo that was behind the oval glass (and exposed to alot of light according to the owner) is lighter than the rest of the photo.

The whole photo is a combination orange/yellow/brown color. I thought it looked like a classic b&w photo that turned color and faded. But when correcting with curves:

- the area of the photo that wasn't behind the glass oval, showed green grass, blue sky, etc. (although extremely blotchy with waves of purple, pink and green here and there).

and

- the area behind the oval glass just goes sepia and stays really flat with hardly any detail. It remains flat and hard to see any detail. The only color that shows in this area is blue blotches.

I have tried color correcting by using levels and curves in the separate R,G & B channels. I've tried correcting the whole photo together - and then separate corrections for the area behind the separate areas.

Even changing it over to b&w (and playing with levels and contrast, etc.,) doesn't help.

When I try to duplicate the layers, etc., to bring out the detail in the faded areas, it only gets darker and hard to read.

Has anyone had any success with photos like this? Is this an impossible task?
I'm getting ready to return this photo to the client cause I've hit a brick wall.

If seeing the photo will help, let me know and I'll upload it.

thanx

[goose443]

Seeing the photo will definitely help.

[sobo]

I posted my photo on my original message at the top.

Any input, suggestions would be so much appreciated! I hate to have to return this to the client, its the only photo she has of herself and her father.

[peoples10]

the picture is not there

[sobo]

If it isn't of good enough quality let me know - it only took up about half of the allowed space so I can make it bigger/better.....

[chrishoggy]

Just a quick look:
Deleted Blue channel, desaturated image and converted to gray scale, then played around with levels.
Not very clear, but the details do seem to be there. A bit more time and effort could give some nice results

[philbach]

Well I didn't do well at all trying to get the color, but I used a levels adjusment layer. The white point I selected was his right shirt color and the black point was his belt. I then tried a channel mixer adjustment layer to get the best contrast. After that neat image and selective sharpening. All sorts of stuff.

[sobo]

So, would the consensus be that a color reproduction is out of the question? Why is that? Just too far gone?

Chrishoggy: How do I delete the blue channel?

Phil - Your's looks good. Can you offer a little more detail on how you did it?
I'd really appreciate it. Not sure if I can reduplicate what you did at this point. More details on the channel mixer and neat image

thanx

If anyone can get a good color image - let me know.....

[chrishoggy]

In photoshop just select Channel view in bottom right corner, right click on blue channel and delete.
It looks like 99% of the colour has been bleached out with sunlight, so I would work on it as B/W and then colourize it. You may get some original colours back, but I don't think they would be good enough to work with.

You will get better results with a high res scan, with no compression. So scan at around 300-600 dpi and then you may see a better image come through with the blue channel removed

[Verywierd]

A very quick try. Applied the red channel a couple of times, sharpened using a high pass filter layer and cleaned up a bit with Grain Surgery 2. A lot more work needed to get rig of the greenish spots and blotches and the frame.

[philbach]

How I did it. Well Err I sort of forgot. So I've enclosed how I approached the problem. This time I did not clone out or use the healing brush etc on the oval rim and the various spots (like the kid's nose).
1.) I opened the file and applied a levels adjustment layer using the white eyedropper on the right shirt color of the man and the black dropper on his belt.
2.) On top of that I used an adjustment layer channel mixer with grey as the output and the source the red channel.

3.)I then combined the layers (stamped them) and continued. I selected the oval center area, Inverted that selection, Feathered the selection, and copied the outer edges of the photo and used screen blending mode. I did that times two to match the luminosity of the inner with the outer part of the photo

4.)I combined the layers again (stamped them) and continued.

5.) I copied that layer and ran neat image on it which cleaned it up considerably.
6.) I copied that layer using overlay blending mode to increase the contrast

7.) To increase contrast and darken the upper right part of the photo I used a levels adjustment layer with a gradient in the mask box. Times 2

[mistermonday]

I took a different approach which was to squeeze out of the image all of the contrast that was left to bring back some detail. A curve to adjust the contrast further. From here you can convert to B&W prior to cleaning it up or you can try to color it.
Regards, Murray

[sobo]

Thanx mistermonday - can you offer more detail? thanx

[Kraellin]

sobo,

welcome to RP.

you asked about getting the color back. i'm afraid it's a bit too far gone to just restore. there is some color data left, but i'd use that later on to proof out the colors for a colorization AFTER restoring what's been lost here....and there's a lot gone.

STAGE ONE:

your first task is to find the detail again, as best you can. the second task to reconstruct the missing detail...again, as best you can. once you have a decent image again, THEN AND ONLY THEN would i attempt to re-color the image. some, in other images like yours, have done a semi-passable job of restoring color as the restoration, but it was rather hit and miss and not what i would call a client-worthy job. it could possibly be done that way, but i think in the long run you're going spend as much time or more trying to do it that way than to just restore and then colorize.

so, finding the detail. the first step is to desaturate the image. dont go to grayscale, but do go to no color by desaturating. this can be done with things like the Fast Fix plugin, or with a hue/sat/lightness filter and simply reducing the saturation to 0. that will give a decent base image to work with.

curves, contrast/brightness, levels, lum frequencies, 32 band gray, clarify, high pass sharpen, and noise reducers are going to be your next steps. these are almost all tools that will tend to bring out detail by using contrasting methods. in other words, you're going to sharpen by contrast. you can also use blending modes with layers. you do one tool, make a duplicate and test some blend modes between those layers. this will often give you a bit more detail as well.

basically, all you want to do is find the image first. that's all. it's blended into all that discoloration and fading. you have to bring it back.

STAGE TWO:

once you get the best you can with those type methods, it's now a matter of reconstructing what's just totally lost and cant be brought back any other way. first, find what's there. second, add back what shld be there and isnt.

and this is going to be the tricky part. some folks start here and it's almost always a mistake. you're going to use tools like clone, and push, and smudge and airbrush. you're going to borrow parts of the image to reconstruct other parts. or, you're going to simply create those missing parts newly.

the best way to do this is to make a new blank raster layer. you'll do all of your work on this or on successive blank layers adding one to the other. you set your tools to 'use all layers'. and you also leave good restored layer(s) turned on so that you can 'use all layers'. but, you're going to putting all the cloning, pushing, smudging and so on, ONTO the blank layer, not your restored layers. with the blank layer on top of the restored layers, the changes will be on top and appear to be on your good layers. so, you'll see your progress as you work as if it were being done on the good layers.

you simply work with these type tools to reconstruct what shld be there. there is enough detail in your image that you're going to be able to do this fairly well. you can see his lips, for instance, even if it is somewhat cluttered up. so, you remove the clutter and bring out the lips a bit more.

this may not always be truly reconstruction. some of it is still restoring, things like the lighen/darken tool are normally restorations since they are non-destructive. clone is often thought of as restoring as well, but because it is destructive, i tend to class it more as a reconstruction tool.

you may also find that it helps to do a bit of cloning and smudging in stage one, especially if it's easy spot removal type things. that's fine. whatever works. but i'd save the major work for stage two with those tools.

once you've done all the stage one stuff and the stage two stuff and you're satisfied you have a good, clean image again, THEN move on to your re-coloring. dont try to color this image before that or you wont like it. you'll be adding complexity you dont need if you do so.

i'm attaching an image that i took through stage one and partially through stage two. i could put hours and hours in on this type of image and i just dont have the time to do everyone's. besides, i'd be spoiling your fun i mostly concentrated on the faces. in fact, while i was working in the early stages, i made the determination of 'what's important here?'. what is the real picture here? well, obviously it's the man and the girl, but even more, it's their faces. so, when doing all the previous work, i check the faces. did this action make them better or worse?

i also concentrated more on his face than hers. hers is going to be the more difficult. being the smaller object there is less detail left. and i tend to work from easy to difficult.

also, for those who are throwing away the blue channel, i'd highly recommend not doing so. there is some detail there and you're throwing it away. a brightness/contrast adjustment layer applied to just that channel will bring back a surprising amount. you could probably also use a curves or levels on it. in fact, i found that by splitting the channels and applying a brightness/contrast adjustment layer on each channel and then combining them back made for a pretty good starting point.

craig

[sobo]

I don't believe I've ever used "stamping" layers before. I have an older version of Photoshop. What would the equivalent be?

Also, I have not used neat nor can find it on my photoshop.

I have 7 - what would the equivalent of these two items

So far I'm not getting the same results - but I have a feeling not having the neat is a big part of it?