Photo restoration of my father in 1944

[timmy1729]

Hello everyone,
I'm back with another baby picture of my father.

I've gotten as far as I can on this with my current skill level. I have no clue how to handle that stain on his right arm. Also, I do not know how to deal with that HORRIBLE texture over the entire picture. Lastly I don't know how to deal with the discoloration in the shadows under the table and between his shoes. I've looked through a couple of restoration books, but nothing stood out as being able to help me.

So, what can I do to fix these issues? Also, what do you think of my work so far? I need objective viewers to give comments and suggestions so I can improve. Thanks!

[mistermonday]

Hi Timmy, the image is Black & White so I would desaturate it or convert it to grayscale to get rid of the areas of stray color such as between his shoes. The pattern resulting from the textured photo paper is more difficult to illiminate. The fastest and easiest way to mitigate it is to use a good noise filter such as Noiseware, Noise Ninja, Neat Image, etc. It will be a trade off between the amount you want to blur the image bersus how much of the pattern you are willing to put up with.
Regards, Murray

[TommyO]

Timmy,
You may also want to consider rescanning or photographing the image again. The paper texture can be reduced dramatically by realigning the light source. Also, the "discoloration" you refer to looks like silvering - a normal product of age on images from this era. The silvering will only get worse on the original, so don't wait to get all the good scans or photographs of it you want. There are also several other methods of reducing silverings' effect. You can search RetouchPro for other threads on that subject.

[timmy1729]

Originally Posted by mistermonday

Hi Timmy, the image is Black & White so I would desaturate it or convert it to grayscale to get rid of the areas of stray color such as between his shoes. The pattern resulting from the textured photo paper is more difficult to illiminate. The fastest and easiest way to mitigate it is to use a good noise filter such as Noiseware, Noise Ninja, Neat Image, etc. It will be a trade off between the amount you want to blur the image bersus how much of the pattern you are willing to put up with.
Regards, Murray

Would using a Channel Mixer adjustment layer with Monochrome checked work for this?

[timmy1729]

Originally Posted by TommyO

Timmy,
You may also want to consider rescanning or photographing the image again. The paper texture can be reduced dramatically by realigning the light source. Also, the "discoloration" you refer to looks like silvering - a normal product of age on images from this era. The silvering will only get worse on the original, so don't wait to get all the good scans or photographs of it you want. There are also several other methods of reducing silverings' effect. You can search RetouchPro for other threads on that subject.

I will try rescanning it then. I only have a Kodak 4mp point-and-shoot and it wouldn't work for photographing this. I'll look up some techniques for scanning images such as this. Thanks!

BTW, other than the silvering still being there, what do you think of my restoration so far, as in getting the creases out?

[0lBaldy]

Timmy if you are going to Re-scan this thread may help : Scanners, textures, scratches, cracks, silvering

[TommyO]

Originally Posted by timmy1729

BTW, other than the silvering still being there, what do you think of my restoration so far, as in getting the creases out?

Well, I'm Ok with most of the spot removal. However, the clone source for the creases may have been too far away, as it brought in some noticeable larger textures. You may have to retouch those areas again and try to select some of the texture nearby.

You may also want to examine some of your adjustment layers, as one of the adjustments you made has accentuated the texture a bit, making it more noticeable as well. Sort of re-highlighted the little highlights in each of the tiny crevasses.

[unimatrix001]

I started by switching to lab mode chose the b channel, used apply image chose the a channel set to exclusion to reduce the silvering. switched back to rgb mode used the magic wand to select the dark areas of the photo, applied filter,noise,despeckle 4 times to reduce the texture in the shadows, selected the highlights and applied the same filter once. repaired the defects around the table and small areas of the curtain and jacket. Used grain surgery 2 to sample the grain from the original photo and add it back into the shadows to reduce the texture a small amount more.

[lurch]

Unimatrix, lovely job - except the image looks lavender on my monitor.

[unimatrix001]

Thats odd I did convert it to black and white when all adjustment and corrections were made.

[timmy1729]

Originally Posted by TommyO

Well, I'm Ok with most of the spot removal. However, the clone source for the creases may have been too far away, as it brought in some noticeable larger textures. You may have to retouch those areas again and try to select some of the texture nearby.

You may also want to examine some of your adjustment layers, as one of the adjustments you made has accentuated the texture a bit, making it more noticeable as well. Sort of re-highlighted the little highlights in each of the tiny crevasses.

Thanks for the suggestions! I made two scans per the scanning tutorial that OlBaldy posted. I'll see if that helps when I get home this afternoon. Yeah, I've got a lot of practicing to do with creases and tears. Those are a little difficult. But, I can edit out pimples like a champ!

Quick question though. With dealing with creases and similar repairs, what adjustments are better to do before repairing those and what adjustments are better to do after? One book will say to do all major repairs before even doing a levels adjustment and some will say to fix the levels and contrast before doing major repairs. I can do steps and processes. But, things like this are difficult for me to grasp. I'll try putting the two scans together first and see if that helps me any. Hopefully that will reduce the silvering and bring out some more detail.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone! Keep 'em coming!

[timmy1729]

Originally Posted by lurch

Unimatrix, lovely job - except the image looks lavender on my monitor.

Mine too. I'm looking at it on my flat-panel at work and it looks that way on this one. I'll see how it looks on my laptop at home this afternoon.

[amica999]

yep, slight lavender cast here too...

[Cupcake]

The normal retouch,
B&W, re-color,
CS3 noise remover

[timmy1729]

Originally Posted by timmy1729

Mine too. I'm looking at it on my flat-panel at work and it looks that way on this one. I'll see how it looks on my laptop at home this afternoon.

Lavender on my laptop screen too. Oh well. No biggie

[unimatrix001]

After a closer look at the photo and checking out in photoshop i see what you were talking about. It is possible i forgot to desaturate so i desaturated the photo this time.

[timmy1729]

Ok, Tommy, I took your advice and rescanned it and used the technique shown in the link OlBaldy posted, scanning one way and then rescanning at 180 degrees to that. That actually took care of the silvering and made it look a lot better! Yay! Also, I scanned it at 1200dpi to see if that would help preserve some detail while restoring it. I am restoring this to give to my father for father’s day this year, so I want it to look as nice as possible. Also, do you have any idea what adjustment I could’ve made to increase the paper texture instead of reducing it like you noticed?

I used a contrast mask while playing around with it and it brought out a lot of detail, but created a slight halo around his jacket and hat. The blue channel showed more detail in the bottom half of the picture and the green and red channels showed more detail near the top. I tried using an inverted desaturation of this image for the contrast mask, but it didn’t bring out as much detail as using the green or red channels.

I’m pretty unsure as to what this picture needs in terms of retouching. I know some of you have posted your reworkings, but can you be a little more detailed as to what this picture needs? I can see that it needs a levels adjustment and contrast adjustment. Should I do the major repairs before starting any adjustments or should I wait until last to do that?

Would it be better to simply desaturate or should I use the Channel Mixer to make it B&W?
And when should I do that in the workflow?

I apologize for asking so many questions! Like I said, my brain only works in processes and steps. I’m trying to get to the point where I can be more creative, but I am trying to get my basics down first. If you all can tell me what you think needs to be done and in what order you think it should be done, that would help me understand this a lot better. Or if one of you knows of an online tutorial or book that would help me figure out this specific photo, I would be forever grateful!

[Neillo]

Timmy1729

Rhonda Dinwiddie had a great alternative on how to get rid of the texture on your scan - here's a link to her post she made on a different thread. Useful to all of us.
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/ima...tml#post230755