my mom

[jesterjeni]

my mother passed away at age 36.. I found her wedding picture and Im not sure were to start ....anyone??

[TommyO]

Jesterjeni,

This resembles some of the damaged photos we get from Operation Photo Rescue. While quite a challenge, you can restore it quite well if you're willing to make some compromises.

Think about cropping. Maybe a "portrait" orientation, just within the visible wall area. The damaged area below her waist can be cloned fairly easily. Just not the areas to the sides.

Start with some color correction first. Trick PS into working with just a good area by using the rectangular marque tool around just the good area above her waist, then do your levels (or method of choice). This prevents it from working with the damaged area. It will apply the corrections everywhere, just not use it in the corrections calcs.

From there you will have some good data to use as a close source, etc. Then I think patience is all you need.

[jesterjeni]

will try that thank you!

[amazingcurt]

I might put this image up as a challenge and see what you get.

[jesterjeni]

good idea!!

[jesterjeni]

working on this photo- kinda stumped

[philbach]

Well what seemed to be a good start was to look at the various channels. Notice that the blue channel looks the best. Select the blue channel and copy it to the clip board.

Make a new layer and set to luminosity mode and paste in the blue channel. Next I went into lab mode and adjusted the skin tones slightly.

[jesterjeni]

I will work with that for a little while
thank you

[jesterjeni]

I adjusted the channels.... I was able to draw out some of the features that I couldnt see before...this picture was taken in a building but not a church- it was fairly dark