Help with damaged photo!

[mrblake50]

I have this photograph of my 35 yr old sister, taken just a few years ago. My father sent it to me to restore, I have restored some other ones, but this one is a doozy! I don't know if it can be repaired or not. Please point me in the right direction. Thanks in advance for any help!

Maureen

[jeaniesa]

Hi Maureen,

First off, welcome to RetouchPro! I'm glad you found us!

You don't mention what image editing software you're using. Are you familiar with channels? If you have Photoshop, look at the individual channels by clicking on each one in the channels palette. It appears that the damage is significantly less in the blue channel. So, since the image is black & white, I would start by eliminating the red and green channels and work only with the blue channel. You'll still need to do some cloning to get rid of the remaining damage, but at least you can kind of see what's "behind" those yellow streaks.

Please let me know if you need more details. I'm not sure what level of knowledge you have and would be happy to expand on what I've said if you're unfamiliar with the terminology.

I've attached a copy of the picture with just the blue channel - nothing else done to the image.

Jeanie

[mrblake50]

Hi Jeanie! I'm posting a reply in a new thread because I got a #404 error and the options to reply to your post were not available. I'm using Photoshop 7, not terribly proficient, took 2 online courses from Sherry London, still waiting for her to finish writing the next course. I will take your advise and dump the red and green channels and work on it from there. Will post results!
Thank you very much for your help on this!
Maureen

[Imhotep]

Here's one for you to take a look at
All with the clone tool

[mrblake50]

Imhotep,

I'm so impressed, I had worked like a dog with the healing brush tool, you really did a nice job, mine looks nowhere near as nice as yours! Thanks for showing what can be done!

Maureen

[Imhotep]

The healing Brush is a great added feature to photoshop
But it has it's limitations like everything else