How do I begin to restore this?

[wildwood_pro]

What should my first steps be in working on this image. Especially how do I recover the girls face and remove the crud on it? I use PS7 and am very new to working on images this way. Thanks for taking the time to help me.
Char

[Quantum3]

I think it will be easier building a time machine and go bak to take the shot again than repairing this image...

[aartist]

Faces are critical in restoration, so additional photos of this women would be helpful for comparison purposes in order to present her as she should look.

[0lBaldy]

Ctrl+J, Ctrl+J
dust and scratch filter @ about 3 and 0
hide all mask (hold Alt key down while clicking the mask icon)
Small soft white brush (size 3 to 6) paint bad spots a click at a time
Merge down
Ctrl+J
do it again for the stubborn spots

I found a similar face and slightly blended it in... If there is a good picture of the subject it would be a much better fit

Good Luck! go slow and be patient..

[TommyO]

Char,
Everyone has given you good advise. Unfortunately, when there is surface damage to an image, it is not possible to restore the underlying detail... no magical tool. It's due to the fact that as the image is scanned the light captured by the scanner is disrupted by the surface damage/crud. So, you are basically scanning crud, not the underlying image.

The other option is to do a physical restoration first. There are a lot of threads here on RetouchPro about fixing surface damage on modern day photographs. You could also contact a conservator in your area. If the surface damage can be removed, repaired or minimized, you can get a good scan and do the touch up from there.

[wildwood_pro]

Thanks everyone for your advice, everything but the time machine was very helpful.

[vbrestorer]

Char:
For additional help (members' advice, tutorials, forum search, etc.) checkout Operation Photo Rescue. Their reason for being is to collect photos damaged by natural disasters (Hurricane Katrina, for example) from families affected by those disasters, restore them, and then return to the families prints of the restored photos. This is a free service done by an international network of volunteers primarily using Photoshop. They're a great group of people who have done some amazing restorations. You can begin checking them out at www.operationphotorescue.org/forum. Good luck.