Finishing touches

[xmac1x]

So I got a load of help form some guys at boards.ie (rockbeer and sharkemon) and between the 3 of us i've managed to pretty much restore this really damaged photo. But the I haven't got the skills to apply the finishing touches ie making it look smoother, sharper, less digital noise without the blur. So can anyone lend a hand?

Cheers

[TommyO]

Welcome to RP !
It's going to be difficult to get it to look much better. It appears the original was not exactly in focus. Whenever you sharpen, it is nice to do it to a higher resolution image. It basically just lightens and darkens pixels on a light/dark boundary. If the boundaries contain large pixels you just get a mess. So, it may not benefit you to have anyone sharpen this thumbnail; they'll need a link to a higher res image.

It is also useful to do the sharpening on a freshly merged layer, then mask and brush the sharpening in to just the more critical edges manually. Basically, this prevents sharpening of flaws that look like light/dark boundaries. And it always helps to sharpen the primary facial features, i.e. eyes, nose, mouth, etc.

You did a very good job on the other part. I think the rest would be a piece of cake. Just work on additional layers so you can delete them if you don't like it. If you think you need a third party utility, try Photoshop's own Reduce Noise first. It does a very good job and allows multiple types of noise reduction in one dialog. Also, you can do sharpening and prevent noise reduction of details in the same dialog.

[Markzebra]

If you have a tablet, some subtle curve based dodge and burn will make it less inconsistent. Don't touch it with any sharpening - it will just go fake

[xmac1x]

well cheers guys thats really good advice, since I'm only knew to this whole restoration thing all the advice I can get is appreciated! :P

[Kraellin]

i havent used 'sharp' in quite a while. but, i do use 'unsharp mask' quite a bit. but, keep it light. a little goes a long ways and it's very easy to overdo.

and on noise, i used to use Neat Image, but i now use paint shop pro's 'digital camera noise removal'.

[chillin]

Originally Posted by xmac1x

Finishing touches

Before the finishing touches, I would definitely look for more details.
Some of them are hidden in the blue channel.
See the sample below. Still a lot of work to be done, but you can see some results.