Restore Help for the Grand Lady

[srailey]

Hello All,

Just when I think I'm getting the hang of this along comes another photo that makes my head ache.

Attached is a photo of a Grand Lady of New York, circa 1910. The original is small, about 1 1/2 by 2 inches. I scanned at 300 dpi. Upper left corner is missing and many scratches. Also, there appears to be what I will call chemical damage to the blouse and other areas (black smudges).

Using PS 7 I have been able to do a passable job on scratch repair and restoring the missing corner, contrast through levels and curves, but the face presents a continuing problem for me. So far I have not been able to get good results on the left side of her face or a consistent skin tone.

All suggestions are much appreciated.

Thanks, Steve

[Cameraken]

Hi Steve
Welcome to Retouch Pro

This is quite a difficult one and it contains jpeg artefacts, hopefully from compressing it to post here.

I started from the yellow channel
Polaroid Dust and scratches set to remove the darker spots.
Neat Image on a surface mask
I cleaned up a bit on a new layer
Finally I added back the sepia.

The rest will be down to how much work you are prepared to put in to cloning out the other marks etc.

I did not spend too much time on this as hopefully you are working on a higher quality image.
The contrast in the face is not too much of a problem in the yellow channel.

Hope this helps

Ken

[srailey]

Cameraken,

I am in awe. Great job. The face is just what I was looking for. I had hit that "wall" in ideas and you gave me just the push I needed.

Many thanks, Steve

[Cameraken]

Hi Steve

Thank You for your kind comments. Glad we could be of help

You could also try Polaroid D&S on the Lighter spots on the background and clothing.

I made the surface mask using Mitch’s new ‘Roll your Own’ Masks which are available here

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/photo-compositing/12005-actions-making-edge-surface-masks.html

Someone else may come up with a better solution. But I can’t think of one.
Just be careful with the glasses. It’s very easy to loose them.


Ken

[philbach]

Well I used Neat Image to do most of the cleaning up. Fairly aggressive and large settings. In addition I used the healing brush tool, spot healing brush tool, stamp, and paint in photoshop CS2

[srailey]

Very, very nicely done. I'm still having problems with the mouth, and my results give the impression of too much wine in too short a time.

Thanks for showing me what can be done.

Steve

[Kraellin]

philbach,

very nicely done!

Craig