Help for a newbie :) removing unknown stains....

[heart]

Hey everyone,
I am new to retouching and retouchpro, and I haven't quite got the skills to do this one yet. I am however very impressed with everyone's efforts on the photos I have seen so far on this web site. So I was wondering how you more experienced members out there would go about this...
It is a picture of my grandfather and grandmother, the only one I have, with no negative
This is a fairly old photo-1972, dont really know what the stains are on the piccy, but I hope someone can do some magic for me, and some advice as to how to go about it.

Many thanks.
Heart.

[chrishoggy]

Really quick cleanup here:
1/ found channel that had least damage and deleted other 2 and converted back to rgb.
2/ opened second copy of image and erased damaged area
3/ placed that image over top of first one
4/ colourised bottom layer to match top one and flattened image
5/ ran through neatimage to remove some noise and sharpen slightly

Thats it, but it would need more work to give a good clean finish

[Cameraken]

Hi Heart
Welcome to RetouchPro.

The marks on the picture are all different colours and because of this I could not find and ‘Auto’ way of doing this.
I resorted to cloning and painting. But I am sure there is an easier way, as Chris has already shown.

Ken

[Kraellin]

all i worked on was the woman's face. the majority of change was done with the hue/saturation/lightness filter. i followed this up with some back-painting on a separate blank layer... a bit of clone, airbrush, smudge, push and just a tiny bit of sharpening.

craig

edit: the hue/sat/lightness was done over a selection of just her face so as not to affect any of the rest of the image.

[Flora]

Hi everybody,


heart,

Welcome to RP!

I had a quick go at your picture:

* removed the stains (ooooppsss, I just realized I've forgotten a reddish spot on the gentleman's left lapel ... )
* removed the reddish/yellow cast
* improved contrast and sharpness.

I'm in a bit of a hurry right now, but if you are interested, I'll post a more detailed explanation later ...

[Cameraken]

I was not happy with my picture above and have just replaced it.
I had got the woman’s face too dark so I added another layer and adjusted the luminosity. And a little more painting. It is better but still a bit too much Neat Image.

Flora.
Your picture is Great. I have been searching RP looking for a method on this.
All three channels are too dark in the stained areas.
I am not going to ask for your method, because I appreciate how much time this takes, but if you could point me to a thread with a similar method I could probably work it out.
The ‘key’ to most of these is starting with the right method.


Ken

[Flora]

Thanks Ken! ..... and really a great improvement on your picture!!!

You know I don't work with 'numbers' but simply by 'eyeballing' and the 'feeling' I get from each picture ... this means that I rarely follow the same procedure twice .... and that's what, I think, makes 'my' methods a bit confusing and frustrating ....

In cases like this, for example, the first thing I (and everybody else) look at are the channels ... and, if I see a small chance, I try to get a 'good' start by using Apply Image (it's not better than any other Channels Tweaks ... I just feel more comfortable with it ...) .... Unfortunately here, as you rightly pointed out,

All three channels are too dark in the stained areas.

.... so ... no go.

After a few unsatisfactory tries, the following seemed to work the best :

* Working on 'Nan's' face only, as you can see from my Layers' Masks (Attachment1), I created a 1st Levels Adjustment Layer where I tweaked:

Master (RGB) Input Levels:
0
0.95
161
Red Input Levels:
14
0.81
255
Red Output Levels:
0
225
Green Output Levels:
12
255
Blue Output Levels:
64
255

Better ... but in some parts of the face the colour was gone or off .. and I still had a rather flat yellowish cast on the lighter parts of the face ... Attachment 2

* So I added: Hue/Saturation, Selective Colors and a 2nd Levels> (just to tone down the nearly 'blown out' area on her chin) Adjustment Layers which lead me to the result in Attachment 3

* With a blank Layer set to Color I corrected the 'off colour' areas ... and now I had an acceptable 'base' for the rest of the restoration. Attachment 4

[Gary Richardson]

Had to have a go with this one.

Mostly an exercise in colouring and cloning, with a few local adj of levels and curves.

Finally applied Neat Image to reduce noise a little.

[heart]

My uncle who hasn't got a picture of his mum and dad was so very impressed, with everyone's submissions.
I must say to everyone "thank you all sooooo much".

Flora, You have done a fantastic job. Could you please go through a step by step detailed version for this newbie, you can email me, otherwise if it will help those others out there....you can post it. Would be most interested, thankyou again everyone for your great efforts.

Agaid, I am very impressed and inspired to give it a go, with some guided advice. Most greatful.

[Gary Richardson]

You're welcome, any clarification or help needed on a particular point, just post, I'm sure someone will be able to resolve any difficulties you might have.

Good luck with your restore.

Gary

[Kraellin]

well, i had to try this one out also. however, this is my first full attempt on an image using ONLY Elements 4. normally i use psp 10. since there are no channels to play with in Elements, i had to do this the long way... clone, hue/sat, sponge, dodge and some others.

being that this is the first time i've really used Elements to do a restoration, i must say, it's an interesting tool and fairly comparable to psp. i'm fairly sure this is why adobe did the whole elements route, to compete with the lower end, lower priced editors. i think they fell a little bit short in places, while in other places they did pretty good. the auto-levels was superb. the noise reduction, not as good. the clone in elements is a bit more clumsy than psp, but does as good a job once you get used to using it. i still like psp's better for ease of use, though. i'm also not quite sure why they name things like 'sponge', sponge and not 'desaturate'. that's really all it is.

the hue/saturation adjustment layer was interesting and a bit easier to use than psp but both do the job fairly well. i think Elements has a slight edge there, though. the whole color wheel thing in psp is a bit confusing till you study it a bit. Elements' is a straight line and easier to see and understand.

i'm not real happy with the woman's face but i had the same problem in psp, so not much difference there. i think i'd need the full photoshop to really do the job right.

i can now see where the Gimp is drawing some of its models from, PS.

all in all, an interesting program; a bit shy of what it shld be, but a worthy competitor.

superb job, flora!

craig

[Cameraken]

Flora.
Thank you for posting your method.
A very Interesting use of Output levels. You managed to achieve in one layer what took me several.
I also tried Russell Browns Digital Stain Remover on this. That method gave her a blue face. But a good method to try on other pictures.
Thanks again.

Heart.
The marks on your picture look like chemical damage. You may be able to arrest it by washing the print in water for about half an hour.
If you don’t want to risk that then I suggest you store this picture in a dark place or it may go worse.


Ken