Old Kodak photo, noise & lack of detail

[littlelynell]

I told a women that I would see what I could do with this old family photo -- the General in the hat/uniform is a deceased family friend and apparently of some fame. As you can tell, lost detail and overall yellow cast. Using mainly PS-CS, what can I all do? Would prefer not to purchase another plugin to accomplish this if possible.

Thanks in advance for any advice!
Lynell

[BillFrey]

Hi littlelynell,

If that's an original scan, there's something wrong with the scanner or the scanner's software settings.

The yellow is uniform throughout the photo and border and there is grain matching the photo grain in the border. I've never seen this type of damage before.

I'd get the original and rescan it before attempting this restore.

Bill

[cardmnal]

littlelynell,

I spent less than a minute on this one. I converted it to grayscale (Image>mode>grayscale). I than lightened it with levels and duplicated the layer. On this new layer I applied smart blur and set the blending to linear dodge. I backed off on the opacity a bit, flattened the image and did a little cloning. It needs more work but this can get you started.




Alan

[mistermonday]

I agree with Bill. The color and distribution of the yellow is not natural. You should take a good scan with a good scanner and make sure that all of the scanners "auto adjustments" are OFF.
This is heading in the right direction but as Bill suggests, a better scan is recommended prior to investing a lot of time.
Regards, Murray