please help me fix this picture

[china02150]

I have this picture of when I was a child, and some of the painting rubbed off. I need help restoring the picture, I tried it myself on my photoshop, but I don't get the process. Help me?

[Littlecoo]

G'day China,
If you could post your image so the community here can see what you're working with, that would make it easier for us to give you the help and advice you require.

[elohssa]

There's a lot of work to be done there!
Any chance you have a higher-quality scan?

[china02150]

I'm sorry but this is the only scanner that I have. Thanks

[elohssa]

It is possible to fix, but there is so much work involved.
I started on the little girl, but I don't have the time that would be involved to finish this...

If you are new at this, I would suggest something easier to start out with!

[china02150]

thanks alot anyway I'll keep on trying

[Kraellin]

cute picture, china, and welcome to RP.

like the others said, a lot of work here. but certainly fixable.

on images like this, i like to do a bit of simple things first, to try to bring the image out more and make the other steps easier. this involves getting a bit more contrast in the image and fixing some of the fading and color mis-balance.

the contrasting can be helped with things like 'curves', 'levels', 'brightness/contrast' and similar 'adjustment layers'. if you dont know what these are, look them up in your manual or go to the adobe help sections online. you basically just want to see more of the original picture here and fix the lighting and fading a bit.

the second step i'd do is fixing the color somewhat. this can be done with other adjustment layers like, 'hue/saturation', 'color balance', 'channel mixer' and some others. on these first two steps, dont worry if it's not perfect. just get it closer to right for now.

after that comes the hard part, fixing all the cracks and creases and missing parts. this is going to take the most time and requires quite a bit of patience and skill. the tools you might use here are things like 'clone', 'smudge', 'airbrush', 'paintbrush' and so on. you do these on a separate layer above your other layers with the 'use all layers' button turned on.

if you dont know what all those terms are, you're going to have to do a bit of study and learn the tools.

photoshop is a BIG program and can be rather daunting to learn. but you dont need to learn it all in order to fix this image. go over those tools i mentioned and ask here if you get stuck anywhere.

[Dave.Cox]

Lot of missing information, but here is my go at it.

[china02150]

thanks dave u did a nice job on the face still needs some work i'm still working on fixing it thanks for the try i'd appreciate

[DCobb]

My interpretation of the project.

dc

[china02150]

wow I see feet!! good job Is there any way to change the color in the picture?

[DCobb]

Your original picture has a yellow cast. You need to be very specific as to what you want changed. I have a feeling you do not mean blue bricks and green hair, but that could be done.

dc

[china02150]

Hahaha, no I mean just the color of the clothes.

[John_D]

Originally Posted by Kraellin

cute picture, china, and welcome to RP.

like the others said, a lot of work here. but certainly fixable.

on images like this, i like to do a bit of simple things first, to try to bring the image out more and make the other steps easier. this involves getting a bit more contrast in the image and fixing some of the fading and color mis-balance.

the contrasting can be helped with things like 'curves', 'levels', 'brightness/contrast' and similar 'adjustment layers'. if you dont know what these are, look them up in your manual or go to the adobe help sections online. you basically just want to see more of the original picture here and fix the lighting and fading a bit.

the second step i'd do is fixing the color somewhat. this can be done with other adjustment layers like, 'hue/saturation', 'color balance', 'channel mixer' and some others. on these first two steps, dont worry if it's not perfect. just get it closer to right for now.

after that comes the hard part, fixing all the cracks and creases and missing parts. this is going to take the most time and requires quite a bit of patience and skill. the tools you might use here are things like 'clone', 'smudge', 'airbrush', 'paintbrush' and so on. you do these on a separate layer above your other layers with the 'use all layers' button turned on.

if you dont know what all those terms are, you're going to have to do a bit of study and learn the tools.

photoshop is a BIG program and can be rather daunting to learn. but you dont need to learn it all in order to fix this image. go over those tools i mentioned and ask here if you get stuck anywhere.

Thanks Craig..

I know your reply was not to me, but, I just wanted to say thank you for sharing the steps you take in repairing photos. This is the info many of us beginner types need to help create our own techniques. Some, when starting out, have little or no idea where to start when trying to repair damage... info like yours helps us to get organized and maintain interest in photo repair. It is very nice to see your photo repaired for you by other members here, but, without good explaination of how the result was acheived the beginner learns little.

Thanks Craig.

[unimatrix001]

just another interpretation. was a real tough pic. hope you like it.
Mostly used the patch tool to remove that cracks and smooth out the differences in color. just a little healing brush on the face. small amount of cloning tool set to lighten and darken. removed noise using noiseware,
auto color to get rid of the yellowing, saturated the red shirt at 100% and reduced opacity to around 50% and finally a new layer filled with medium dark gray set to color blending mode reduced opacity to 12%

[china02150]

that was a really good work there but I was wondering if you can cut the face from the the first reply and put it on this one that u fix. Thanks

[Lasa]

It just a matter of spending some time on it.
I wanted to test it so I only used the patch tool to zip around..to bad it such a low res scan it could be cleaned up nicely.

lasa

[Kraellin]

you're welcome, john

[Guy Thomas]

Hi Everyone,

It's my first time here, and I'm glad to see so many people in this community.

When I looked at the image, it seemed to me that she was holding a flower in her hand, so my resto reflects that. I'm not really happy with the final output, because I think it looks a little to much like a painting, but what can you do with an image this far gone I guess?

Let me know what you think.

-Guy Thomas

[Kraellin]

by george, i think you're right. there does seem to be a flower in her left hand.

[china02150]

Hi Everyone,

It's my first time here, and I'm glad to see so many people in this community.

When I looked at the image, it seemed to me that she was holding a flower in her hand, so my resto reflects that. I'm not really happy with the final output, because I think it looks a little to much like a painting, but what can you do with an image this far gone I guess?

Let me know what you think.

-Guy Thomas


Thanks guy for doing this to the pic It looks really good to me I've been trying to fix this pic but no luck yet. Thanks for your try.
Thanks , Maria

[Kraellin]

hang in there, maria. this is not an easy one.

i've been looking at it again. this is basically a two-part work. you've got the folds/scratches and the off-color/fading. each part shld be addressed separately until that part is fixed. i'd start with the cloning. get that all patched up and then fix the color balance issues.

let us know where you're having troubles. post some of your work. that would help.

[Kraellin]

TONS of clone, lots of airbrush, and a bit of push and smudge here and there.