Antique Photo Restoration Guidance

[rpm4242]

Hi,

I have performed quite a bit of work on restoring older photos thru Photoshop, but this 120 yr. old photo is presenting quite a challenge. I'm kind of having trouble knowing where to start. One of the main problems is that it is a picture of photo taken through an old dome glass frame. I have no way of getting a better shot. I don't know how realistic of an expectation to have on what can be done.

My main problem is working on the details of their faces and ending up with realistic looking skin. I have attached the original. I don't expect anyone to work on it for me, but any suggestions or guidance in the process would be very much appreciated.

[TommyO]

Welcome the RetouchPro,

I suppose it depends on your goal. You mentioned obtaining realistic looking skin... I don't know of too many photo's from this era that have realistic looking skin. But, normally our goal is to restore the photo to its original condition, or very close. I could be wrong, but I don't think this photo was ever real crisp and sharp. There are some tell-tale signs that it was somewhat soft.

I think you will do good to get some of the contrast back and use that as a template for basically painting in much of the tonality and finer detail. It will be hard to restore the lighter areas, such as his hair and beard. Much of those areas become "art", not really restoration.

Keep the image from becoming too soft. You will need to add back in some noise/grain to keep it realistic for that era. If I had to think through a rough workflow, I would say it may boil down to 1/4 restoration, 1/2 painting in new detail, and 1/4 fine tuning noise/grain.

Good luck with it ! and keep us posted with your results.

[byRo]

Welcome the RetouchPro,

.... like TommyO said, and....

....it's going to depend a lot on your client.

To get this looking anything like a decent image with "realistic looking skin" you are going to have to add (let's say) 50% of information that just isn't there in the original - that's the "art" bit.
Some clients will value a final image which looks brand new over an image that is completely faithful to the original.
If you are doing this just as experience, then by all means go all the way. If not, check first - you can spend hours doing "art" on this and then have to face a very unsatisfied customer.

Rô

[rpm4242]

Thanks so much for your quick and helpful responses. I spoke with my client and he had no interest in making the photo look like new, but rather to keep it true to the original. I haven't yet shown him my progress but have done quite a bit of cleanup on it. Any of you guys have any suggestions on further improvement? I would have liked to make it more crisp but there wasn't a whole lot to work with in that regard.

Any and all comments are welcome.

Thanks so much!

[Kraellin]

these are always difficult. the original is very old and quite faded. it's hard to even say how much detail might or might not have existed in the original. as such, just clean it up as best you can and unless your client is paying for an oil painting, dont worry about it too much.

you've got an awful lot of splotchy noise there yet. i normally clean that sort up with cloning, airbrush and smudge. but there are other techniques you can try, like adding noise to reduce noise, running a noise removal on it, physically burning it, running it through the garbage disposal and so on. ok, maybe those last two wouldnt work too well. the real trick is to find what works for you and doesnt end you up in the poor house.

one thing i find myself doing in these sometimes is, cleaning one duplicate up as best i can and then putting that cleaned up layer over JUST the original and using a blend mode on it, trying to get the best of both layers that way.

[0lBaldy]

Maybe a Sepia would help

[resto]

It looks like you did a good job, like the above posters were saying it just turns into artwork trying to add too much info that’s not there.

To be honest most photos I’ve seen that get to much stuff added to the look like crap.

[Kraellin]

that looks pretty good, OB.

[0lBaldy]

TY sir.. Now back to the Magnificent Phelps Show

[Kraellin]

hehe, indeed! he just won another.

[bazza64]

come on Aussies. (lol)

[0lBaldy]

Those Sheila's making the Blokes look pretty bad!

Sorry bout hijacking your thread rpm4242..
It's just that back in the 50s I was an Olympic swimmer!.. I will quit mucking up your thread now and get back to work..

[bazza64]

Your right there OB, great accent, where did you learn to speak Australian? (lol)

Footnote: OB 's right,we should be in the chat room, sorry rpm4242

[Kraellin]

OB, you were an olympic swimmer? wow. did you medal?

[rpm4242]

Thanks for everyone's input.

Obaldy, what method did you use to smooth out the grainy-ness?

[0lBaldy]

rpm4242, I used Imagenomics Noiseware on a copied layer then masked back portions ..
I also used the Patch Tool extensively on portions that did not smooth out very good and after each patch used Shft+Ctrl+F (Fade)
Then matched colors and painted faces

bazza64, I had Aussie Pilots fly me around quite a bit and we partied pretty hard at times..

Kraellin, Nope nuttin fer me... They all whipped my a$$.. I did the IM, BS, 400 Free... Gawd that was a long time ago... now I can't even get out of the Tub..

[Verywierd]

I really don't know if this is an improvement or not. I was using the image to experiment with a series of filters, adding grain, smoothing and re-filtering. The main advantage of this image is that other than the removal of a few large black spots on the faces that were obviously not texture, there had been no painting or interpretation (and I did not clean up the background either). Anyway, I decided to post it just in case you found it useful.

[Kraellin]

well, very cool that you participated, OB!

[chillin]

The jpeg artifacts prevent details recovery. Probably a tiff scan would be a better option, but still it gets to the point of "splitting hair".

[Nan]

I did some brightness/contrast adjustments and low opacity cloning. Also some selected levels. I usually get these too smooth. I tried not to do that on this one.
Nan

[Kraellin]

that's looking a lot better, nan.

if you're worried about being overly smooth, try a mask on the skin and some added noise to give the skin some grain. or, take your airbrush and set it to a very low opacity, like 3 or so, and set the density down to give a less than solid painting.

also, folks, dont forget about channels. i did an rgb split, an hsl split and a cmyk split. you might some useful help there.

[Kraellin]

i could probably do this 100 times and not do any better than this... maybe it was definitely a tricky one.

i started with some standard definition applications, my old 'find the image, then fix it'. so, a bit of brightness/contrast and a bit of clarify. levels and curves might also help, especially if you used good black and white point handlings.

after 'finding the image' i then did a LOT of cloning followed by some airbrush and push. so, pretty much my standard routine for something like this.

one extra tip on this type of work is, do a copy merge and paste to new layer somewhere in your work. turn off ALL other layers except this new one and the original. then simply turn the new one off and on and compare your work to the original. this will sometimes help you keep 'painting within the lines' and staying true to the original.

[Nan]

Very clean Craig. You must have spent a lot of time on it. I've been somewhat criticized in the past for cleaning too much so I'm never quite sure how far to go. I've used noise on other restores and it does help. Haven't had much success airbrushing except on graphics. I'll try that soon.
Nan

[Kraellin]

hi nan,

well, how far is always determined by the client, unless of course they just tell you 'well, you decide.' i've seen em done all sorts of ways. my guess is, if we put our two versions together, we'd get something about right

i mostly use airbrushing to adjust shadows that have been wrecked, though not exclusively for that.

[heritage63]

Hi,

I've been a member of this forum for some time but have never posted so this is my first. This is a difficult image so I downloaded it just to practice. I did some basic level adjustments, contrast, burn, and highpass sharpening in photoshop and then used various blenders in Painter to try to enhance facial features and retain texture in the beard. This is my attempt!Clone of 1800's Restoration Photo.jpg

[Kraellin]

pretty good, heritag63. a bit dark on the gentleman, a bit noisy overall yet, and her face looks just a tad different, but pretty good. and trust me, it's not that i think mine is any better

now, some may think i was just kidding about combining mine and nan's attempts. i wasnt. so, i tried this myself. i think i got the best of both using an overlay blend mode with hers on the top layer. i removed too much of the 'character' and hers might have been slightly underdone. mine overdone and her's underdone combined = just right

this combo put back some of the character i had removed. and i really wouldnt expect this restore to get much better.

so, forgive me, nan, for not asking for your permission first. and well done on the restore

[Nan]

How funny Craig, I came on to post what I came up with combining yours with mine after your suggestion and found that you had already done it. I put your's on top and used soft blend. Then did a selective levels adjustment on just the clothing. Mine version is probably still too grainy.
Not bad combined.

Heritage, I like the way you brought out the eyes. Also what you did with her dress. I have an older version of Painter but have never learned to use it.
Nan

[Kraellin]

it looks good, nan. and how funny that we just both did this almost at the same time

so, the moral would seem to be here, take nan's instructions and mine, combine them and you shld get something worthwhile

[byRo]

There is a phrase here in Brazil: "Comendo pelas beiradas", which literally translates to "eating from the edges".
The meaning is that if you are doing something difficult, do the easy parts first. After a few times, always doing the easiest part, when you get to the hard part you've pretty much "eaten" the whole thing.

What's this got to do with anything?
When restoring do the easy parts: General lighting, background, clothing - leave the faces till last.

My sequence, attached:
1) Lighting balance - there were light and dark patches all over, fixed with D&B;
2) Background and clothing - Lens blur for background, smudge for clothing;
3) Faces and hair - two different smudge brushes one for each, plus more lighting fixes to make the man's face combine better with the woman's;
4) Colourized - OK, maybe I went too far.

(I know some folks don't agree with "extreme" restoration like this as it's a bit too far from the original - depends on the customer)

Rô

[Kraellin]

looks good, Ro. i wouldnt say you went to extreme here, especially considering how bad off the image was to begin with. the colorization is something i wouldnt have thought of for this image, but... cool