OLD poorly done photo

[fantacmet]

This is an old family phoyo, as you can probably tell from the styles. This is the only copy of this picture in existence, and was the only photo taken this day. My restoration skills are mediocre at best. There are several people in the family who would like a decent looking copy of this even if it is digital. I scanned this at 300DPI. Anyone think they can do anything with it? No need to colorize it, the B&W looks great I think. It's up to whoever is messing with it though, just I'm not concerned if it gets colorized or not.

http://i221.photobucket.com/albums/d...photos/003.jpg

[Kraellin]

i've looked at this pretty closely and i think you're going to find this one very difficult to help very much. it is both blurry and over-exposed and has shadows on the faces, a nasty combination. it's the blur that's mostly making it tough, though. you could try 'focus magic' or 'unshake' to try to take some of the blur out, but i wouldnt hold out hope for too much improvement.

and, in so saying, i went ahead and tried 'unshake'. i could help it a tiny bit, but not much.

let me add, with a fair amount of artistry, you could help this, but it's not what i'd call a straight restore type. you'd need to rebuild most of the eyes and fix all the high whites along with the de-blurring. but, it probably can be helped.

[TerryB]

Kraellin's correct, nothing can be done with the blur; here's an attempt to open up the shadows a bit for more detail on the faces.

http://i381.photobucket.com/albums/o...etch/003-A.jpg

[lurch]

Focus Magic really is! All I did with this one is run Focus Magic on it, then the CS3 Shadow/Highlights adjustment at the default settings. There's still work to be done on it, and you're stuck with the blown-out whites, but there's plenty of hope for improvement. Perfection, no.

[fantacmet]

Well I appreciate the help, both are improvements. I wil see if I can find a copy of focus magic. Even if it doesn't become perfect which it obviously won't, having some noticeable improvement is alot better then having nothing, and will allow those who don't have the original to enjoy the memories perhaps a little better. I appreciate the help like you wouldn't believe.

[tawnidilly]

Here is my try. I did a high pass sharpen and adjusted the brightness and contrast. Also did fill flash and clarify.

[fantacmet]

Well at least now, nobody will have to really strain to tell who it is. It doesn't take much sometimes.

[Kraellin]

hi tawn,

i seem to recall there was another method for trying to fix images like this. i believe it was something like putting a copy of the original over the original in another layer and then offsetting the top one by 1 pixel or so and then using a blend mode on the top layer. i forget which blend mode, but you could probably do a search of this forum and find it.

[printmeister]

Hi,
I used Focus Magic on this and the some Shadow/Highlight adjustment. Also a bit of Dodge and Burn to try and define where the boy's shadow is on the lady's dress.
Needs more work though.

[Ziba]

Used curves layer,unsharp filter, dup layer deselve (2) and clone tool.
Ziba