herring bones and distortions

[sage150]

I was attempting to take out the herring bones in this photo and
clean it up for a friend.I used neat image and then applied a
small amount of gaussian blur to it.I then changed the image
resolution from a 200 to a 120 because it seemed out of focus.
I then applied a sepia using color in hue and saturation.
The picture is distorted.Any tips on how to clean this photo up
would be appreciated.

Thank You,

Joseph

[Leah]

What I tried:

Neat Image

Adjust Levels each channel individually

Channel Mixer (monochrome) 50% red 50% green (the blue channel was a bit shot)

A small amount of gaussian blur just in the bottom right-hand corner -- this area is still far from perfect but I think will attract less attention when printed than it would if over-blurred.

Patch tool to remove damage.

Convert to grayscale (Image -> Mode -> Grayscale).

Duplicate layer, run High Pass filter on duplicate and set its blending mode to either Overlay or Hard Light (I can't remember which one I used here).

Use a tritone for sepia toning: Image -> Mode -> Duotone -> Load -> TRITONE -> Process Tritones -> choose one of the BMY sepia tritones to taste.

[sage150]

I will attempt to try these steps in the other photo she gave me too.
I am familiar with some of the steps you mention but I will have to
see about the tritone.I'm not acqainted with that procedure.

Much appreciated.

Joseph

[Leah]

I have to admit I don't entirely understand how duotones/tritones/quadtones work myself (I get the general idea, but am very hazy on the details). Fortunately Photoshop comes with so many duotone/tritone/quadtone presets (and there are many more available on the web) that you can get good results without knowing exactly why...