Stymied: How can I bring this back

[byRo]

There is no escaping the dodge/burn stage, however as bart said, it is much better to use a couple of levels layers (one to lighten, one to darken).

Also, as CJ said the deGrunge trick will help a lot - but you have to be very careful with the masking so as not to introduce strange "glows".

This is a very dark (low-key) image and any effort to lighten it just makes a noisy mess. The darkness can be used to great effect in "hiding" defects (i.e. fade to black) but that doesn't mean making the whole background black - there is a door and a picture that can be recovered.

Rô

[Kraellin]

i took a different approach. this is almost all clone, airbrush, push and smudge. just a ton of hand work. i started this days ago and then went on a small vacation, so i dont recall everything i did, but the majority of it is as i said. there may have been a curves in there somewhere and i do also remember a clarify filter. i may have also use a shadow/midtones/highlights.

[bart_hickman]

Nice work Craig.

Bart

[Kraellin]

thanks, bart. definitely a stinker to work on.