Photo Restoration

[kookie56]

My friend had this old photos from the 70's and asked me to try to fix it. It stuck to the glass frame and was pretty beaten up. She also has no face on it. I have tried to bring up the face a bit. Any more tips to get them looking good. There is also one of her brother from the same era but I haven't done anything with it yet.

[hawkeye60]

I'm far from an expert, but here's what I did with it:

[cardmnal]

kookie56, perhaps you can upload larger images, these are far too small to do much with.



Alan

[kookie56]

cardmnal I have uploaded a larger file. Is this any good? Any tips on getting the face to show up more?

[kookie56]

Lookin good Hawkeye. How would I get the face to show up more?

[dataflow]

i dont think you could get it to show the face more.
you would need to create the face yourself by painting it in

[dataflow]

just had a look at the image and you can get some detail in the face if you darken it

[0lBaldy]

I would ask your friend if they mind if you crop the images.

Used the small scans because they seem less damaged.

First one: Cropped, Levels and a bit of sharpening

Converted the second one to B/W then Cropped, Levels and a bit of sharpening then Sepia toned (you could color)

[TommyO]

kookie56,
I think Hawkeye and OlBaldy have the right formula. Also, notice the difference between your scans. The scan result can make the difference between a good project and a bad one. You must decide how you approach your scanning, based upon your skill level and desired workflow.

For example, if your skill level is low and you desire to spend less time in Photoshop and more time elsewhere... then you can build a scanner profile that will autocorrect for many image problems. However, many PS users prefer to do all the tweaking in PS. So, they set their scanners to adjust nothing, not even removing dust. But, it is entirely up to you.

Your scans here are quite varied. I also had better luck pulling detail from the smaller scans. However, I would have preferred a lot more pixels to work with. (That's just a limitation of the upload size in the forum.) The later scan lost some detail somewhere. So, you should examine your scanning software and learn what was different. That will help you in the future. In today's age of faster larger systems, you typically want a high density scan for restoration work, like 1200dpi. Don't save it as a .jpg, as that will cause data loss. Save as a .tiff. You can then convert to other formats later to upload, etc. You can probably get better results from the forum members by linking to an outside image upload site and making a high resolution image available to them.

Good luck !

[warlock]

Just my try. I tried to bring out some of the face. Leveled, sharpened, removed blemises, colorcast, darkened and history brushed face to leveled master.

[Kraellin]

kookie56, welcome to RP.

your first posted image is scanned at 1200 ppi (pixels per inch, meaning essentially, 1200 dots per inch). however, the image dimensions are under 1 inch per side. that means you've got very few dots in the image. we need more dots.

your second posted image is scanned at 550 ppi and the image size is slighly over one inch per side. that still translates to not very many dots (resolution). so, essentially you lowered the ppi but raised the inches which made the whole thing come out about the same.

what is needed is lots and lots of dots, resolution. that means you need a bigger image size and a good scan rate, like 8 x 10 inches at 600 ppi (that's just an example). you then use the jpg's natural compression rate to cut the file size (image size times scan rate) down to the 100k we use here on RP.

cutting the image size while raising the scan rate doesnt do any good. cutting the scan rate while increasing the image size also doesnt do much good.

what we do want is more dots per inch and more inches. think of it this way, if you had a line that was an inch long, and that line was made up of 100 dots, you'd have a resolution of 100. if you cut the line in half, 1/2 inch, but doubled the dots, you'd still have a resolution of 100, 1/2 times 200.

what we need is for you to increase the inches and the dots, like make that 1 inch line 2 inches and the number of dots per inch 200. that would then give us 2 times 200 or 400 resolution.

the reason for this is that the more dots per inch and the more inches, the more detail we can get in the face. if her face is only 15 dots across, that's quite hard to manipulate to make it look good. it will look blocky. but, if her face is 150 dots across, you can manipulate the image easier, with more detail.

and if you like, think of it as building blocks. you could build her face with 15 blocks across, each with a slightly different color, perhaps. or, you could build it with a much tinier block and have 150 dots across and get a much better, clearer, more defined face.

make sense?

[MatthewMarshall]

What you need is a better scanner, or take it some place and have it scanned. but what it also comes down to there just might not be the resolution there anymore. To bad we all don't have a magic scanner like the tv show CSI. Those scanners can make anything show up.

[kookie56]

Thank you for all your work and help. I did do the original scan in 1200 dpi at 4x4 size in tif format. Something I had been advised here. I had to change the format and size to get the photos small enough to be uploaded. I have put links to the original scans below.

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j3...mooriginal.jpg

http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j3...ie56/Frank.jpg

I will have to learn more about photoshop as I am only a beginner.

I use a Canon scanner in work (not sure of the model) and an Epson 1200 at home. Was thinking of buying a new scanner as I have been doing a lot more restoration for friends and family that I do scrapbooks for so will need a good scanner. Can anyone recommend one. Don't want to buy a really expensive one but will go to a few hundred pounds.
All the help you guys give is really appreciated, especially for all those beginners like me.