1st attempt - 100+ year old photo

[garypch]

I have restored photos before, but this is my first serious attempt. I received a scan of this photo of a great, great uncle from a relative overseas. It is part of an album of many more similar photographs, which I'll also be restoring. Some are in much worse shape.

I would appreciate any feedback. Thanks.

Gary

[Kraellin]

garypch, welcome to RP.

well, you did a good job of handling the noise. in the process you've lost a bit of definition and left a bit of clone marks. nonetheless, it shld print out pretty well.

first thing i would do is add a bit of 'clarify' to bring the image out more. this is also going to bring the noise out more too. if you're using photoshop, i'm not quite sure what the equivalent is to 'clarify', but you could use a brightness/contrast adjustment level that shld come close. you want to bring out the detail first, as this will make other steps easier.

attached is my workflow and image of this.

[DCobb]

I used this picture for some practice. New background, used the degrunge method--as posted as a tutorial on this site--to smooth the skin, added back some noise as it looked flat. Bright-contrast, cloning, healing brush, spot healing brush.

dc