restoring aged photo - newbie

[bzbri9]

Hello!
I am sooo happy that I discovered this site. My grandmother passed away in June and my mother and aunts have given me some old photos to copy for them. I am finding this to be a labor of love, as I am not content to just scan and print. However, restoring photos has become something I enjoy very much. I just wish I knew more!

Enough babbling, the photo that I am having the most difficulty with is a photo of my grandmother and aunts/mother. Other then coming from a very smoke filled home, the picture stuck to the glass. I was able to(after reading some suggestions in these posts) remove the picture from the glass by wetting the back of the picture only where it was sticking. I was able to then scan just the picture.

I am attaching the "restored" photo. I have Corel Paintshop Pro x2, Photoscape, Photo Impact Pro 13.

Thank you all for any suggestions or help you can give!
Britt

[TommyO]

Britt,
Welcome to RP !
The image is sort of in the middle, between hard and not so. Unfortunately, it was not in focus originally, and was in bright sun. So, it will never look like a picture taken correctly.

The histogram still needs work, so work with the Levels some and adjust each channel. The colors may get off, so you will also have to add some adjustment layers for Hue/Sat, mask some areas and apply the adjustments only where needed.

Attached is a quick example of the little bit more detail available from Levels.

Best of luck with it !

[DCobb]

I took a quick try at this. The results are not really good, but better.

dc

[bzbri9]

Thank you both for your suggestions. I've never used the histogram before, so I was a bit nervous. I guess that's what the undo button is for.

Attached is what I have so far. I realize this picture will not be perfect, since it was not perfect to begin with. It is an important picture for her daughters, so it is important to me to fix what I can. Unfortunately there were a great deal of pictures that were blurry, etc. Most I have been able to restore, some, not so much.

I really appreciate your help. I'm referring back to both of your examples as I work on the picture.

[bzbri9]

I'm sorry, I guess I should have actually attached the picture. I'm not so sure I like what I've done. I'm going to take a go at the original again, or rescan it, and try following both of your suggestions again.
Thanks for your patience.