Any advice on how to smooth the skin?

[zoruth]

Hi,

I have been using photoshop to try and fix this old photo. As you can see, the original was in pretty bad shape, but even after trying to fix the scratches, I can't seem to find a way to smooth the skin out. Any advice will be great appreciated.

Original

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo...eat=directlink

Edited

http://picasaweb.google.com/lh/photo...eat=directlink

Thanks.

Erick

[skydog]

Your skin is already quite smooth. It appears you are still trying to restore. The inconsistencies that remain in the skin can be fixed with the clone tool if you have photoshop.

[igot2pman]

If your talking about the lines in the picture, you might was to just dodge and burn till even. other methods might be a pain here, and give you bad results. Just make sure you do it on a seperate layer just in case you mess up.

-Keven

[0lBaldy]

Zoruth, Welcome to RTP (RetouchPRO) Nice to have you aboard and hope you enjoy the experience.

Looks like you are on your way to a good restore! Just a bit more work and you will be there!

We would appreciate it if you would not use external links as the only source for images. By attaching the image to the post it will be viewable forever.

The following links may help!
Attaching Files or Images to Threads or Posts
Size and quality for Attached Images!

After you post your less than 100K version here, you could also post a link to the site that is hosting a larger version as you did.

What I did:
I did a good levels first then used Polaroid Scratch and Dust filter found here, several times using a hide all mask on a copied layer then painting with white on the mask to hide the dust and scratches, then merged down and copied that layer and did it again, merged down... etc till most of the hard work was done (Used both light and dark settings)

there were some marks still left so I copied the layer again set the new layer to darken and moved it up and to the right a couple pixels then masked that layer with a hide all mask and painted white over the inconsistancies... merged down...
Then it was clone and heal time.. Small soft brushes and low opacity and many strokes!

Used Neat Image on the muddy setting to get rid of some of the noise... found here (the free version.. so had to reduce the size to 1024 max size.. raised it back up after the restore)

more cloning and healing on little areas

used VirtualPhotographer (Free) found here to add some grain, and get the the Glamour, Spice, and Black&White look

Lots of Patience and small steps at a time

Original and Different versions using Virtual Photographer

[zoruth]

Hi OlBaldy, thank you for the information on how to upload the images and for the work that you did on the picture. I am going to try and do what you did, so I can learn correctly how to do it.

Thanks again.

[zoruth]

Thank you all for the advice. I'm going to experiment with all of them and will let you know how it goes. It's actually fun to use Photoshop to restore pictures!