[amica999]

Hi my try,

several multiply copies on top, curves and highpass - only looking for face details though

[dbarrack]

Here's a shot.

[Kraellin]

ok, let's take this in steps. whenever you see an image like this which is blown out from poor exposure at the time taken or from damage over time, you want to look at the histogram. if you dont know what a histogram is, it's time to get out the photoshop or paint shop pro dictionaries and find out. it's important.

at first, i actually tried levels but soon realized from looking at that that the histogram was messed up. so, we correct for that first. in this image, all data were to the right and scrunched up. that's not good. that means that all your data areas are not filled. it's sort of like compressing all the light data down into one area of your light palette. i'm using a metaphor here, so bear with me. and the solution is to un-scrunch it, separate it back out to the rest of the palette of the histogram. you want data, in this particular case, to be spread out across the histogram. the tool for this is the histogram adjustment tool. photoshop and paint shop pro both have this tool.

ok, first we make a duplicate of the background layer on top of the background layer. to the duplicate we call up the histogram adjustment tool. and you'll see what i'm talking about that the data are all in one area, not spread out like they shld be. so, i simply moved the left most slider over to just left of the where the actual data starts. and then i adjusted the middle slider a bit. in Paint Shop Pro, there is another slider on the right side, a vertical slider. i moved this up quite a bit. then i simply adjusted all sliders more finely to give me what i wanted. i didnt move the gamma adjustment at all. and i didnt move the top or bottom limiters either.

now, remember, this is just a first step. this is simply adjusting the light levels back to something like when the photo was taken. it does NOT correct the blown out face, though it does bring out some detail. and this is all just the first step and a very easy step. we'll attempt to correct the face and other blown out areas separately in another step.

also bear in mind that my monitor's gamma may be a touch off right now since i was using it for something else today and havent reset it yet. but this shld be close enough to show you what i've done.

[Kraellin]

and here's a screenshot of the histogram adjustment tool in use. and when i mentioned those first sliders, i meant those little triangles below the histogram. they act like a levels adjust.

notice the histo data are like i said, scrunched up and over on the right.

[Kraellin]

ok, now this is after the histo adjust and with the histo sliders reset to 0. notice how the data is now more spread out across the spectrum.

i'm a little surprised more folks dont use this very versatile tool more often.

[printmeister]

Originally Posted by esac

How do you colourize? I would love to try that out sometime. Good job, only slight criticism is that he is black hence his skin tone should be darker

esac

I colourise by adding curves adjustment layer for different elements of the picture - skin, eyes, clothes etc. I then adjust the curves until I reach the colour I want. This approach means that it is a fairly simple thing to return to a picture and alter one part, eg. skin tone, as it's on it's own layer.
There are many other methods to achieve a good result

[Kraellin]

i tried a number of things to bring back the skin tone on his face. what i ended up doing was a simple airbrush on a blank layer. i then gaussian blurred that layer and erased a bit here and there and then repeated the entire process till i was more or less happy with it.

when i had that done, you said he was Black, and that raised an interesting question; how light or dark? what i had with the airbrushing seemed a touch light. it was hard to tell from the image how light or dark to go, so i just opted for something medium. my airbrushing was a bit too light for medium, so i copy merged my layers and pasted to a new layer. i then set my burn brush to slightly larger than this facial area and set the opacity around 18 and swiped across the whole face in one stroke, darkening the whole up with one pass. that looked pretty good, so i stuck with that.

during all this i also made another layer and airbrushed the top portion of his uniform a bit darker. the histogram did a fair job, but not quite enough in that area, so i simply set a light airbrush and went over that area on a blank layer.

i also airbrushed his tie and shirt area a bit.

and i did some minor cloning on another blank layer to get rid of small dust spots and such.

and that was pretty much it.

to colorize the image, i'd suggest looking up Vikki's tutorial on this or going to the Worth1000 pages and find their tutorial. i think that's the one Vikki uses. it's quite good.

[Kraellin]

and, if you wanted to give it one last little punch up, try a clarify filter at around 4 to 6:

[klassylady25]

There was a bit of noise so I used the FFT and from there adjusted the level. Applied image - multipy at 50%. Used OptikVerve for the sepia look that so many like but I also like the old B/W. I've given you both and you can compare to the original.

I've worked on so many, many soldiers over the years and each one holds a special place in my heart.

[chillin]

I used a red channel to work on the face area.
After a curve adjustment some noise appeared. I applied a dust & scratches filter to the individual specks. I have kept the eyes almost unattached.

[klassylady25]

Originally Posted by chillin

I used a red channel to work on the face area.
After a curve adjustment some noise appeared. I applied a dust & scratches filter to the individual specks. I have kept the eyes almost unattached.

Now go in and clean up the dust specks. Healing tool works well or you can

duplicate the layer
run the dust and scratch filter until you no longer see the dust
Go to Layer - select layer mask> hide all
and use a small white brush to remove the dust specks.

I did some on your picture but not all. Very good job!