Photo Restoration - - Many Stains, Much Damage . . . Guide Me Great Ones!

insouciance · #1 04-30-2007, 01:34 PM

Hi all

I am new to photo restoration and have already gotten SOOO much from your combined expertise. That being said, I've reached an impasse. This is a family photo that is dear to an elderly aunt. Her son gave it to me in hopes that I could fix it. GRR. I am attaching a low res original (no correction at all), and looking for some advice. Thanks in advance!

Kinda hard to see the damage at 100k. Here's the 1Mb file posted . . .

http://frazier10.4shared.com/

Cameraken · #2 04-30-2007, 06:36 PM

Hi Insouciance.

Welcome to Retouch Pro.

This photo appears to be taken by a Professional Photographer.
You could go back to the photographer and order a new copy?

Ken.

DCobb · #3 04-30-2007, 07:06 PM

As mentioned by Ken, if this is a professional photo you might be able to go back to the photographer and get a new copy made.

The first place to start a restoration is with the scanning process. How much damage a scanner could remove I can't say as I do not do enough of that type of work. I don't know if it would be worth your time and or money to check out what a professional scan might produce if what you posted is not a professional scan.

I gave it a try and found that using the clone tool at various opacities, the healing brush, the Patch tool--this worked great on the striped shirts and plaid dresses--seemed to work very well. The history brush in connection with the dust/scratches filter then set to lighten/darken took out a lot of the small stuff. In the lower right corner I used a plugin to fill that area

I have attached a copy of what little I did. Good luck with your project.

dc
I am adding a quick restoration of one boy's face.

Guy Thomas · #4 04-30-2007, 10:48 PM

DCobb has it right. All this picture needs is a few hours of serious clone, heal, patch work, and maybe some artistic license here and there. Definetely fixable.

If you need any help let me know.

insouciance · #5 05-01-2007, 06:31 AM

It was actually taken by another family member studying photography at the time . . . thus no negative.

DCobb, what plugin specifically did you use for the lower right corner? And can you point me to a tutorial on the history brush method you described? I appreciate your time!

insouciance · #6 05-01-2007, 12:46 PM

and how did you remove the spot over the boy's face? it looks far better than anything that I've been able to produce!

DCobb · #7 05-01-2007, 07:18 PM

I will start by saying I do this only as a hobby. I am not a retoucher or restorationist.

THE BOY'S FACE: I made a selection of the boy's nose to his right in the red sweater and put that on a layer by itself. Then I used a layer mask to paint in what part I wanted. The end of the nose in the original picture was OK I wanted the bridge. Next, I copied and pasted the left eye went to Edit>Transform>Flip Horizontal and lowered the opacity to place the eye the returned the opacity to 100% and again used a layer mask to blend it in. Once the eye and nose were in place I Down Merged those so that I could use the clone tool and Healing brush to further blend them. I am sure there is a better work flow, but what I did got the job done.

LOWER RIGHT FILL AREA: I used the Alien Skin Image Doctor. It has a fill tool. Warning on a high res photo, if your computer is slow it will take some time--minutes--for it to render the results. Use Google to search Image Doctor or Alien Skin to reach the site if you are not familiar with it.

HISTORY BRUSH: I do not personally know of any tutorial for this history brush. You could again go to Google and enter History Brush. I would imagine that you could search this site and find something that would work. A very simple explanation is that you have your picture open and then you go the his History Palette and click snapshot at the bottom. This shoud give you SNAPSHOP 1 or whatever number would be next if you had taken othr snapshots. Next, I went to the Filter Menu>Noise>Dust and Scratches. Blur the picture until everything is gone that you want out and click OK. At this point your whole picture is a blur. Now go back to the history Pal. and take a second snapshot. This will be SNAPSHOT 2. Select the history brush--not the art history brush and click in the little box in front of the work Snapshot. You should see the history brush icon and the word Snapshot should be selected in blue. Now just click on snapshot 1 and that line will be blue--don't click in the little box in front of the word. Go to the options bar at the top and you will see the history brush icon, brush size and then mode. Just switch back and forth between lighten and darken. Do not go back and click on the snapshots because it will take you back to the picture state at the time you took the picture--that is unless you want to start everything over.

I have seen if said that there are at leat 5 ways to do something in photoshop and I am sure there is a better way to resolve the issues and holpefully someone will post a better idea if they have a better workflow to resolve the problems of your picture.

dc

Dave.Cox · #8 05-01-2007, 10:43 PM

I have done some on this photo. Like the others have mentioned Most of this photo can be restored, with some investment of time. Here is what I have been able to do so far, with the limited time I have been able to put on it. I'll do some more on it as I can. and put a larger version up.

Guy Thomas · #9 05-02-2007, 07:11 AM

Unlike Dave,
I do have unlimited time, and am working on the large version. Special Thanks to DCobb, because I had never ventured over to the History Brush.. very helpful, and time saving, thus I excpect to be done within the next two days instead of weeks.

-Guy

zekeode · #10 05-02-2007, 09:53 AM

Noise reduction on duplicate layer, and then brushing good parts out on layer mask. Cloning (good trick is to use "blend mode: color", as the picture has lots of discoloration. Also hue/sat brush seems to help on some parts. Then more cloning....and cloning. Skirt looks horrible on my picture, same goes with few other parts.

Cropped the picture because of filesize limit.

Guy Thomas · #11 05-02-2007, 11:50 AM

zekeode,

That looks really good. I will have to use your color blend mode trick on the clone stamp. I think you did a great job on that tough bottom right hand corner. How long did the photo take you, if you don't mind me asking?

-Guy Thomas

zekeode · #12 05-02-2007, 12:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Guy Thomas

zekeode,

How long did the photo take you, if you don't mind me asking?

-Guy Thomas

Not long, if i would tried the color blend cloning earlier.

Total about two hours using regular mouse. I need to get Wacom.

DCobb · #13 05-02-2007, 08:00 PM

Zekeode--Nice job on the picture. Will give the color blend a try. Don't think I have ever used it before. I do have a Wacom tablet and airbrush. A real time saver.

dc

Just gave the color blend and clone tool a try. Really couldn't see any results that worked. Maybe I didn't use it correctly. I assumy you mean set the tool to clone and then on the options bar in Photoshop you select color at the more--Not the layer?