[BenHardy]

Hi folks.
I'm new to this forum - wish I'd found it a while back before I began restoring a pile of old family photos with Photoshop CS2. That would've save me so much time since a lot of the techniques you discuss here I had to discover the hard way - trial & error.
Anyhow, here 's a photo I've not had much luck with so far. As you can see, it's covered with scratches. Any ideas?
Ben

[Kraellin]

welcome to RetouchPRO, benhardy.

generally speaking, scratches are handled with clone type tools. in some places in your image, however, you could just overwrite them with a paintbrush or airbrush where they arent too large.

[DCobb]

The starting point with any photo restoration is in the scanning process. It would be easier to work with a hi-res photo. I am posting a try which I will admit from the start is not good--anyway.

dc

[chillin]

This type of scratches could be reduced by duplicating background layer & then nudging the upper one couple of pixels to the left…next blending them & adjusting opacity. In addition I kept the "original" men in focus.

[JayNads]

For these types of images, I like to start by duplicating the background layer in Photoshop, then running dust and scratches on the copy. Don't worry about the detail, just focus on eliminating the scratches. You'll end up with a scratch-free but blurry image. Then change the layer blending mode from Normal to Darken. The blurry layer will disappear except in those places where it is darker - the scratches.

[dmrdm]

If you are going to be doing a lot of restoration on old photos, I'd sugguest getting a copy of Katrin Eismann's Photoshop Restoration & Retouching. It is a wonderful book and I use it often when I bump into situations. Covers so many topics, it was one of by best purchases.

[BenHardy]

Thanks for the suggestions. DCobb's efforts seem to work well but there's no explanation on how it was done. Chillin's technique is one I hadn't thought of but is very useful. JayNads' technique is great and is similar to one I've been using, but a lot quicker. I used to run the Dust & Scratches filter on a Background copy. Then, I would select the History state prior to the filter, but change the History brush source to paint from the filtered version. Now, after setting the History brush mode to Darken (or Lighten, depending on the type of noise I have) just paint or spot out the noise, leaving the clean parts of the photo untouched.
However, some of the photos I have are so rough that none of the above are helpful. I attach the worst example.
My next question would have been: Can you recommend any books? but dmrdm's already answered that.
Once again, many thanks for your suggestions.

[DCobb]

I did paint out some of the scratches, but give Jason Nadlers technique a try. There is another way of doing what he did, but more complicated. It involves using History Snapshots, Dust and Scratches and the History Brush set to lighten or darken. My image is too dark, but if you start to lighten it you bring back the lightness of the scratches. I duplicated my first layer and then used a layer mask to paint back the lighter face without changing the tone of the rest of the image. I am not a professional retoucher and my work flow is more or less hit or miss which means I often ending up with a result achieved with more work than necessary.

dc

Just reread your post and I see you did use similar techniques to what I did. As for books you might also try CTEIN's (pronounced: kuh tine') book Digital Restoration From Start to Finish by Focal Press ISBN: 0-240-80814-2 copyright 2007. Enter CTEIN in Google and you will learn more about him.

[s@lim]

Hello,
1.Neat Image plugin'
2. See the layer pic.
3. use the clone tool

[s@lim]

Olso, use the crop tool

[Dave.Cox]

Hard to do too much with such a low res image, but Here is what I could do in about 5 minutes.

I converted back to greyscale using the channel mixer, with 100% blue, and 28% Green. Then added a level layer to set the levels.

I touched up a few of the worst spots with heal and patch tools.

More could be done with a higher resolution scan, but you should get the idea.

[BenHardy]

Thanks for the suggestion on the book DCobb.
S@lim: That's pretty amazing although I've tried and failed to reproduce it. However, I've yet to be impressed by either Noiseware or Neat Image - maybe it's just me not fully getting to grips with either yet.
Thanks Dave Cox - I'll have a mess around with it.
Trouble with Photoshop, I've found, is that just when I think I'm getting to grips it, I discover a whole host of other possibilities. Then of course, I wanna go back to all my original files and start over.