Photo Restoration - - Suggestions please

Britsdad · #1 10-01-2006, 08:48 AM

Hi all, not very often on this forum, but I've done some restoration before. These are not too bad but I wouldn't mind if someone could point me in the right direction. They are both taken in Yorkshire in UK. The first is of Wath town hall in 1910 and the second is the center of Wath in the 1920's, and I want to make them "pop". The original pics are 7"x3.5"and I am trying to get them to print onto A4 paper, full width, ie about 11.5"x5.5". I have scanned them both at 300dpi at 200% useing an Epson perfection 1250 scanner. I am useing Photoshop CS. Any of you restorers with suggestions will be appreciated......Thanks John

Kraellin · #2 10-01-2006, 10:20 AM

britsdad,

strictly speaking, since these have already been restored, a better forum to post these in would be the 'retouching' forum. but i'll just leave them here for now and see what we get in the way of responses. if you dont get many or if the thread kind of dies after a while, i'll move it to the 'retouching' forum. dont worry about it; it's ok. no need to re-post it over there or anything.

as for the images, whenever someone says 'pop', the first thing i think of is contrast. an adjustment layer would do this. but, it's also liable to blow out the already bright whites. so, go ahead and make the adjustment layer then add a magic wand selection set to 'brightness' at a low tolerance ON the contrast adjustment layer. photoshop will consider this to now be a mask in essence. take your normal paint brush and set it to a medium to dark gray. if photoshop works the same way as psp does on these, you'll ONLY be able to select grayscale colors. these are not painting the image but only the mask. so, simply paint your selection/mask to darken those areas you want a bit darker.

to do other areas, just make other selections and do those the same way. this is a good way to selectively highlight or tone down any area of your image.

once you have to contrast 'pop', you might want to try adding a sepia tone or some other filter like 'aged newspaper' to give it some character. a light 'clarify' filter might help also (not sure what 'clarify' is in ps).

and i expect to see your results back here soon

craig

Britsdad · #3 10-01-2006, 11:10 AM

Thanks Kraellin, Yea I know these have been "done" before and they are printed on HP paper but I said I'd give them a go for my cousin.
I've been playing around with this since I put it on here and this is what I've come up with. I have done no "cleaning up" on it, I think I'll leave it as it is. I added a levels layer and upped the brightness a little too much, then brought it down again in selected areas with a curves layer, then added a gradient layer to darken the sky a little. Ran a hipass sharpen action and voila, came up with this, what do you reckon.....John

Kraellin · #4 10-01-2006, 11:46 AM

well, i like the sepia look ok, but on my monitor the upper and lower portion of the image is a bit blown out white, while the camera left side is a bit blown out dark.

craig

Britsdad · #5 10-01-2006, 12:42 PM

Yea, I agree. However it is not quite as bad on the full size files. I think I'll have another try anyway. Thanks......John.

Swampy · #6 10-01-2006, 02:33 PM

Check out my tutorial on Fixing a blownout sky. This should work for you if you select the WHITES and add Black instead of the color sliders. Make sure "Absoluted" is selected.

You can probably use it to beef up the street as well on another adjustment layer and mask out stuff that you don't want affected on this layer.

Daviskw · #7 10-01-2006, 05:23 PM

Hi there

You could always play with them some. Not a good job did it fast... but old city scenes are always fun to colorize... it would be great as a night scene... maybe add some snow

Butch

Swampy · #8 10-01-2006, 08:15 PM

Nice, Butch!

Cassidy · #9 10-01-2006, 08:33 PM

Used Shadow/Highlight Adjustment and wound up the midtone contrast

Britsdad · #10 10-02-2006, 04:53 AM

Thanks all,
Swampy, I did use your tute and basically followed your instructions on here, but I think I'll have to add a different sky because when I added black, taking it from a value of 244ish down to 230ish it turned the sky very dull and lifeless.
Butch, love it I'll e-mail your rendition to my cousin, with your ok, see what she says. (god I do make work for myself!)
Cassidy, another "fix" I'll give that one a try, see what I can come up with.
John

Britsdad · #11 10-02-2006, 06:32 AM

Been trying you lots suggestions, came up with these, a mixture of everything. What do you think?
John

Kraellin · #12 10-02-2006, 07:59 AM

britsdad,

you happened to mention the dates of these photos, so i got the idea to try psp's new 'time machine' filter. but first i ran a clarify, full strength on this and then the time machine filter set roughly to the date you mentioned. not sure what the equivalent to clarfiy is in ps. it's a contrasting filter that doesnt raise the brights so much as a brightness/contrast filter. the 'time machine' filter also adds an appropriate border for the time period.

craig

Britsdad · #13 10-02-2006, 08:08 AM

craig, like the look of that, very good photo edge. I've just been comparing it to mine, I think I have gone a little over the top with the lightening of the blacks, although it doesn't look as bad on the full size file. Will knock it down a bit.
John

Steve Conway · #14 10-02-2006, 11:18 AM

Sorta threw the book at this one, auto image enhance, clarify, contrast enhance, usm, and a touch of Lucis art.

Steve

LonK · #15 10-02-2006, 12:27 PM

This thread reminded me of something I learned recently.

We all know that using global contrast adjustment, highlights begin to blow out and shadows can be blocked.

You can use some exaggerated settings with high pass sharpening to significantly improve localized contrast without those problems.