looking for advise on historic WWII photos

[Julianne V.]

I have photos taken by my Father in Japan '45 and '46. After seeing the cost of having them restored, I decided to learn how to do it myself. I work in photoshop cs, and have been at it a bit more than a year. What are my chances of making a REAL QUALITY restoration of photos such as this? I'm new to Retouch pro so if I've goofed somehow, please forgive and advise. Thanks
Julianne

[rondon]

Is this a soldier? didn't see him at first if so.

[chrishoggy]

Sounds like you have a great collection of images. Bit off subject, but have you thought of the historical value of the images
May be worth showing or discussing the images the these people Here

[Julianne V.]

Yes, that's a soldier. I do realize the historical value of the photos. They also have great personal value as I know many of the stories of the photos. I have many photos (all positives, no negatives) so that's one reason why I am learning to restore photos. My dream is to put photos and stories in a book.

[chrishoggy]

It was difficult working on this image due to it's size, and the amount of fine detail lost through resizing. But this is the result of playing with shadow/highlights adjustment and then running it through neat image set at 120% sharpening and 0% noise reduction.

[Cassidy]

Very crisp detail attained there Chris

[chrishoggy]

Thanks Cassidy
I find that neat image is a great sharpening tool, as well as noise reduction. I don't know why, but the sharpening seems to come out really well using neat image. I use it more for that now than I do for noise reduction.
Forgot to mention. I also used burn tool set to 20% on shadows to pull out more of the detail and the hills in the background

[Kraellin]

not much time to explain details at the moment....

Craig