[Jeff23]

If the information in the background is lost is there anyway to restore the detail of the people or is it lost also? I've tried levels and curves but it looks like there may be a blown out spot on the daughter as well as on the dads left arm. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[stosh7]

I agree ... the two spots you mention are completely destroyed. It's the creative imagine, clone and draw time.

Here's the best detail that I could tease out.

Stosh

[unimatrix001]

a lot of the detail in the background is gone. you can get detail back in the mans face and arm by cloning the missing areas. if you had another picture that was taken near the same time you could copy and paste parts from the other picture and fill in the missing pieces.

[Jeff23]

I guess I'll go as far as I can cloning and then I'll see if I can reconstruct what I think should be where the blown out spots are. Thanks for help.

[Kraellin]

jeff, welcome to RetouchPRO.

i did a little to your image yesterday but my internet was being screwy, so didnt post anything.

mainly, what you want is contrast and heighten type tools and filters. things like curves, levels, contrast/brighten, clarify, histogram adjustment and so on will bring out the detail more. but it can ONLY bring out detail where contrast currently exists. blown out whites or blacks have zero contrast so there is nothing to compare against to heighten a detail.

there is actually a fair amount of stuff in the picture. i can see two cars, a baby and a house that arent real evident in the original. or, at least i can see parts of these. and that's enough to do some reconstruction. and that's going to be the trick on your image, reconstruction.

the cars are quite old, circa 1940/1950, i'd guess. the house appears to be a wood slat type structure, two story.

the way i'd approach this is to restore first then reconstruct. get all the detail you can from what's there and clean that part up, then work on the other as desired. your main focus is there, the people. the rest is secondary and not even necessary for a normal restoration.

for the reconstruction, i'd be very tempted to completely replace the house with something similar or 'plain manilla envelope' type background. if you want to try to reconstruct it, then the best is if you can find any other pictures that that house is in and borrow data from that.

on the cars, there is probably enough data there that you could tell make and model type and find similar pictures of those and reconstruct from those. the trick would be in finding the right angles and relative positions and sizes. but, it could probably be done with enough research and work.

you've got a good large image to work with but i did notice one thing about your image that is not optimal and it may only be because of the file size restrictions here. you have an image that is 'blocked'. i used to call it 'sharpening blocks' and i think others may call it 'compression blocks' or 'jpeg blocks'. but whatever you call it, when you zoom in on the image you'll see what i mean. the image is now composed of small square blocks of varying shades and patterns. i dont know if this was done by your scanner, compressing the file to fit here on RetouchPRO, or by something else, but it's non-optimal to restoring. the first thing i did was to run my 'jgp artifact removal tool' on the image. this basically undoes the blocks and makes for a more smooth looking image.... in most cases

so, you've got a two-parter here, restore and reconstruct. the arm is easy. just clone or paint the missing part back in. the baby actually worries me more than the arm; it's very faded. the background is optional. replace with similar, reconstruct by guesswork, or leave it completely alone and let the viewer fill in the details. it's up to you

[Jeff23]

The daughter in the picture is 62 now so it was taken around 1944. The original was wallet size and was carried around in a wallet for years. That's probably what caused the fading around the baby. The picture that I scanned was a copy of the original.

You are right the blocks are from compressing the image in photoshop.

If I decide on reconstructing the background I may do like you say and replace the house with something similar. Seems like that may be the easiest way to do it. Hopefully I can find someone that has a picture taken with the same house and cars in it. Finding them taken at the same angle is going to be the problem. I appreciate all of the helpful tips.

[Kraellin]

jeff,

1944. good. i was close then

just remember on reconstructions where almost everything is missing, you dont have to replace the house and cars all as one object. you could most likely find an image with the car on the right and cut and paste that in and then another image for the house and so on. you may have already understood that but your wording made me think maybe otherwise.

at any rate, give us a holler if you need more help.

[chillin]

There are some details you could work with, but not much in the background

[Jeff23]

Originally Posted by Kraellin

jeff,

1944. good. i was close then

just remember on reconstructions where almost everything is missing, you dont have to replace the house and cars all as one object. you could most likely find an image with the car on the right and cut and paste that in and then another image for the house and so on. you may have already understood that but your wording made me think maybe otherwise.

at any rate, give us a holler if you need more help.

Yeah I meant finding a picture with either or both at the right angle. I've seen where people back then usually had a favorite spot to take pictures at so hopefully that was one of them. I'll have to check with some of my relatives to see if they have anymore pictures from that spot.

Originally Posted by chillin

There are some details you could work with, but not much in the background

Yeah unfortunately one of the problem spots is on the baby. The arm on the man will be simple to reconstruct but it may take some time to get the baby right.