Looking for Suggestions For Two Photos

[rossk]

I am new to this forum and have learned a great deal from reading already. It simply amazes me what some of you are able to do with photographs.

I have two photos that I would like to clean-up but am struggling with getting satisfactory results. The photos were scanned from old photographs and reduced for posting here.

The first has a lot of noise in the photo, both in the pictures of the people and the background (I cleared out the noise in the background already).


The second has similar noise, areas of overexposure, and some lack in detail.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions! If it would help to post larger sizes, I can probably post to a server somewhere.

Ross

[Flora]

Hi Ross,

Welcome to RP!

I had a go at one of your picture and did the following:

• I duplicated the Background Layer.
• I run Dust & Scratches to minimize the noise, but still keep some texture.
• I added a Layer Mask (hide All = Black) to the Dust & Scratches Layer, and, with a soft white brush (adjusting its Opacity), I painted over the noisiest parts of the picture.
• Merged Visible. (here is how to do it without losing the underlying Layers)
• I created a 'Shadow Mask', (here is how to create both Shadow and Luminosity Masks) copied it on its own Layer (Ctrl+J), and run Neat Image (softer settings) on it, to further diminish the noise in the darkest parts of the picture.
• I duplicated the smooth 'Shadow' Layer, set its blending to Screen (to lift up the shadows) and adjusted its Opacity.
• Merged Visible.
• I created a 'Luminosity Mask', copied it on its own Layer setting the Blending to Multiply (adjusted its Opacity)
  to balance the highlights.
• Merged Visible.
• Created several new empty Layers blendings: Overlay, Soft Light, Lighten, Darken, Screen, Multiply and, with a soft white/black brush (Opacity 10-50%), I carefully painted over the details I wanted to enhance.
• I used the Blur Tool to smoothen some still noisy parts.
• I used USM to sharpen the image.

Hope this helps....