Photo restoration

[casall]

Hi guys
I have tried to fix this image several times and no tutorial or trial and error seems to work. As I get more and more frustrated about this I would kindly like to request your help on restoring the picture of my in-laws. All help is greatly appreciated.

As I had to resize the image and reduce the quality I would very much appreciate detailed instructions on how to repair it.

Hope that someone out there can help me.

/Casall

[0lBaldy]

Welcome to RetouchPRO! Nice to have you aboard and hope you enjoy the learning.

What retouching software do you have that you tried fixing it with? This will help focus the tips to the programs you have available to work with.

you can upload a larger version at http://www.mediafire.com/

[casall]

I have Photoshop CS2 as my photo editing program. I have tried playing around with the RGB channels, tried channel mixing, masking, layering, but everything looks awkward becaus of the frame damage that is on the picture. If the picture would only be reddish this wouldn't be a problem for me to fix.

/Casall

[hawkeye60]

I think you'd be better off cropping out the frame damage rather than trying to fix it.

[Daviskw]

Hi there

I used selective color and curves

Then I painted on some color layers to equalize color... then some dodge and burn.

[casall]

Hi guys!
It's amazing how fast you are replying and the results are absolutely fantastic. Daviskw maybe you could give us less knowing some details on what and how you did what you did. At least maybe some pointers?

/Casall

[Danie]

WOW! I'm having the same problem with my soon-to-be inlaws' wedding photo (the only one they have!). Daviskw - I would also love some to see some details on how you accomplished such great results!

[lurch]

This photo provided a great afternoon's entertainment, while I pretended I was restoring a jpg sent in by a client. Not that I have clients - if that were the case this would have been a money-loser - but it was good practice. My work is done in Photoshop CS3 on my trusty iMac Core Duo.

Kodak's Digital ROC plugin, applied twice after cropping off the frame stains, gave me a decent but washed-out base to start from. This doesn't help those of you who don't have that plugin, but I had to play. An initial color correction using curves in Photoshop would have worked too. Next step was to get rid of the various noises. Topaz Vivacity was my friend, as was Noise Ninja. Did the noise reduction piece by piece starting with Vivacity's de-jpeg. In Lab mode I used the CS3 Dust & Scratches filter with separate settings on the a and the b, and applied Noise Ninja to the L. Then it was on to the Polaroid Dust and Scratches filter to get rid of the various spots.

Wish I could give a disciplined workflow from then on, but it was a matter of just fiddling until things looked right, and I'm not good at documenting fiddling. It did involve selected desaturation for the orange-yellow and green stains most obvious on the guy's coat, and a masked curves layer set to multiply to get good facial skin tones (used the hands as a guide of sorts), and some global saturation of reds and greens. Otherwise I didn't consciously alter any colors - just let whatever was going to come out, come out. (This is to explain why my shirt is black and Butch's is Burgundy). Last step was a high pass sharpen. If I remember more I'll add an edit.

<C>

[Daviskw]

Excellent job lurch... yours shows my terrible yellow caste...I especially like the facial skin tones.

Like you I did a lot of fiddling so a coherent work flow would be hard to type out.

Butch

[Kraellin]

i had a go at this also. let me know if you want details.

oops! i hated this as soon as i posted it. i'll get back to you

[lurch]

Thank you, Butch (from one fiddler to another . . .)

<C>

[Cameraken]

Great job Butch and Lurch

a lot of fiddling

True. This image has faded unevenly so there is no ‘quick fix’

Add a levels adjustment and use these numbers

Red 149 0.82 238
Green 30 0.93 224
Blue 36 1.31 187

That gets the image close but still needs some ‘fiddling’

There are signs that the background was blue so I added a layer set to colour and painted the background blue

A little more paint on the faces

Added another levels adjustment to lighten the edges

And a bit more ‘fiddling’

There is more that could be done but its getting there.

Ken

[Kraellin]

ok, let's try this again:

[colorexpertsbd]

Originally Posted by lurch

This photo provided a great afternoon's entertainment, while I pretended I was restoring a jpg sent in by a client. Not that I have clients - if that were the case this would have been a money-loser - but it was good practice. My work is done in Photoshop CS3 on my trusty iMac Core Duo.

Kodak's Digital ROC plugin, applied twice after cropping off the frame stains, gave me a decent but washed-out base to start from. This doesn't help those of you who don't have that plugin, but I had to play. An initial color correction using curves in Photoshop would have worked too. Next step was to get rid of the various noises. Topaz Vivacity was my friend, as was Noise Ninja. Did the noise reduction piece by piece starting with Vivacity's de-jpeg. In Lab mode I used the CS3 Dust & Scratches filter with separate settings on the a and the b, and applied Noise Ninja to the L. Then it was on to the Polaroid Dust and Scratches filter to get rid of the various spots.

Wish I could give a disciplined workflow from then on, but it was a matter of just fiddling until things looked right, and I'm not good at documenting fiddling. It did involve selected desaturation for the orange-yellow and green stains most obvious on the guy's coat, and a masked curves layer set to multiply to get good facial skin tones (used the hands as a guide of sorts), and some global saturation of reds and greens. Otherwise I didn't consciously alter any colors - just let whatever was going to come out, come out. (This is to explain why my shirt is black and Butch's is Burgundy). Last step was a high pass sharpen. If I remember more I'll add an edit.

<C>

A great job indeed....With Photoshop CS3 and following you instruction one can do wonder to a damaged image....really great...

[lurch]

Thank you, Asif. I consider it high praise when my efforts help others.
<C>

[Mick86]

Originally Posted by Daviskw

Hi there

I used selective color and curves

Then I painted on some color layers to equalize color... then some dodge and burn.

Nice Job! How long did it take, if you don't mind my asking?