Photo Restoration - - Penny Farthing

deadants · #1 05-23-2005, 09:25 PM

This photo was in my grandfarthers photo album and is looking a little worse for ware. Idon't think it's a very difficult repair job but I'm not sure about the area around the moustache and sideburnes. Do you think he has Muttonchops?

Lets see how he ends up.

Kraellin · #2 05-23-2005, 10:36 PM

great photo. but after looking at it pretty closely, my best guess is that the areas in black are something not original to the photo. i thought the dark black around his face might also be hair, even muttonchops, but after looking at the part below his head, also in dark black, and the more remote areas in black, i'm fairly sure these are not part of the photo.

i circled the areas that i think are not part of the original.

K.

deadants · #3 05-23-2005, 10:50 PM

Hi Kraellin,
Your seeing it the same as me. I was originally thinkig it was a scarf, but that would be out of context with the clothing. I think It's a safe bet that the dark area's you circled are discolorations of some sort.

I wonder what the white stuff is on the top of the big wheel???

Well I'll try a restoration by removing the black areas and see what it looks like.

deadants · #4 05-23-2005, 11:35 PM

Here's a closer look at his head. You can see that he doesn't have sideburns. I'm wondering if that's a ferret or a wezal of some kind around the neck.

byRo · #5 05-24-2005, 07:13 AM

Looks like a new episode of RP CSI!!

Rô

byRo · #6 05-24-2005, 07:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by deadants

I wonder what the white stuff is on the top of the big wheel???

I think the guy isn't actually riding, to me it looks like he's too close to the wall (the back wheel is right at the edge of the path), maybe he's only leaning on the wall.
Also don't think it's in movement because and old photo like this wouldn't be able to freeze the scene - the "white stuff" is exactly where the wheel would be moving fastest.

So the white stuff could be just general dirt / fluff from a long-unused bike.

Rô

Kraellin · #7 05-24-2005, 07:50 AM

hehe, deadants, i'm beginning to hate you

ok, i still believe that those black areas are not part of the original. and yes, i thought perhaps it was some kind of a fur collar or scarf also, but there's certain clues around the fringes in places that just make me think it's a corruption of some kind, or maybe even an early attempt at air brushing that went bad.

if you look inside my red areas again, these show areas where i believe you can see what i'm talking about. and those red areas match up with the one in the blue area. it's the same kind of corruption.

also, if you take the image and make a reverse image, a negative, and the black areas are now white, it also looked unnatural to the image.

and byRo, yes, he's not moving. he's leaning against that wall. the angle of his body shows this and the closeness to the wall also show it.

also, deadants, do you have one where it hasnt been sharpened? when i zoom in i can see the sharpening 'blocks' and this actually distorts things a bit on a zoom.

it's a marvelous picture. i love the hat and other garb, the face, the bike. great pic

K.

deadants · #8 05-24-2005, 05:46 PM

Hi byRo,
On the back of the photo is says "New Lambton Gala Day, November 1917" New Lambton is a suburb of Newcastle, 150Km north of Sydney.

I looked at the photo close up and the gloss is still all over the photo, even the areas of damage. So I'm wondering how this damage would have occurred.

Also, Kraellin, I rescanned it in Greyscale with the UnSharp Mask off. I don't know if it made any difference. My scanner is a Canoscan 8000F and it tops out at 1200 ppi for platen and 2400 for film. After I saved it for web to get it down under 100Kb you can see the jpeg artifacts. If you like I will email you a higher res copy. Just send me your email address in a PM and I send it to you.

I have attached a digital photo of the photograph so you can get an idea of its size and condition.

It's going to be a bugger trying to reconstruct the collar area. All help gratefully accepted.

Kraellin · #9 05-24-2005, 07:45 PM

deadants,

smaller than i thought.

ok, just take your best scan, no corrections for anything, sharpness, artifacts or anything, just the raw scan. then crop out the part around the head with the black areas. if you have to because of size, break it into parts to post. i can reconstruct it on my end.

i've done a little more looking at this and find that that blackened area is pretty asuredly some kind of corruption or masking done in a darkroom. it just doesnt match up with the rest of the photo. even with a simple negative image you can pretty much tell.

however, that doesnt mean that it's not a corruption of something that existed in that shape, such as hair, though why a corruption would go that way, i dont know. i also wouldnt rule out the muttonchops. there is some evidence to support those. it's almost like something 'ate' his hair and left a black residue, if indeed that was hair at one time.

but i just cant quite get away from the look of some of those other black areas not around the head and the ones around the head. they look to be the same kind of corruption.

here's a couple examples of why i'm pretty sure those black areas are not original. the black area just does not match up with shading at all to the rest of the pic.

K.

deadants · #10 05-24-2005, 09:40 PM

Hi Kraellin,
If you click the following link and then click on the picture, it should download a zip of the tif file. http://tinyurl.com/cdmjm

I also put the whole picture next to the head shot.

I've had a good look at the fluffy stuff on the wheel and it appears the rubber is wearing out in places and there is a repair job on the tyre. I think they have used rope a substitute for the damaged tyre and it is starting to fray.

Kraellin · #11 05-24-2005, 11:46 PM

ok, that's much better! thanks

it's late, so no photos right now, but i did look at it a bit. you're driving me nuts, deadants

i'm now back to looking at parts of that black as hair. if you look at his left shoulder, following one strand of hair down, it sort of looks like it's braided or has a some sort of hair banding on it. and that part that comes way down on his right side may have something in it also... decorations? beading? very hard to tell. could just be corruption in corruption, white on black.

i'll look at it some more tomorrow.

also, i originally thought he was smiling and i still think he is, but after doing some fine cloning around his mouth, it now appears a bit differently. it's still a smile and i even think i can make out some teeth; it's just different than what i first thought.

K.

Jaime · #12 05-25-2005, 03:15 AM

Hi deadants,

Just in case your are not familiar in collecting old photos, these type of photos with old bicycles are usually valuable among the collectors.

deadants · #13 05-25-2005, 03:29 AM

Well the state it's in now, I'd say it is not worth a cold beer. I think my mother would be a bit miffed if I started selling my Grandfarthers photos.

Dreamypix · #14 05-25-2005, 08:24 AM

Just curious...could the black stuff be a mold damage of some type? Looks like you are going to have your hands full on this one!

Amber

Kraellin · #15 05-25-2005, 03:16 PM

dreamypix,

that's what i was wondering too. the funny part of it is that it seems to almost follow some kind of pattern. maybe there was something chemical that the mold liked on one part of the photo that it didnt on the rest. ??

deadants,

i've looked this over a bit more. every channel is corrupted, red, green, blue, and cyan, yellow, magenta, black in the other method. the blue was the worst, if i recall, but all were affected. that makes it tougher.

i've tried several filters, all without much luck in separating things out. i even resorted to trying some user defined filters and some imported plug-ins. again, no real success in bringing out some more detail in the 'damaged' areas.

there is one area that has me a bit perplexed, and that's on his left shoulder. there is a line of black coming down from the heavy black area, and this line of black seems to have a braid to it, ending in some sort of tie or beading or stay of some sort. the perplexing part is that it looks almost the same as the real bad black areas, but there seems to be that tied look near the end of it.

i also tried to discern more in that lower black area coming around his middle. i've gone both ways on this one, but mostly i'm now leaning back to mainly corruption. also, in this same area, there almost seems to be some shadowing on his coat from the black, but the problem with that is that the shadowing doesnt quite make sense to me given the source of the light.

still, there are bits and pieces of the black that seem to have some detail that might make sense under certain circumstances....might.

i think you're going to have to just make a 'best guess' on this one. i lean to removing the heavy black and replacing with surrounding area colors and shades, but that's by no means a certainty.

you DO get some interesting pieces; i'll give you that

K.