Local Contrast and Exposure Variations

[Smudger7]

Hello, this is my first post to Retouch Pro having read and benefitted from many other messages during the past couple of years; so thank you. I wonder if anyone can help here?

I have been working away steadily on this photo of my great grandfather and his son but am struggling with the lowest part of the image below the bottom scratch and the centre left of the image below the large scratch/crease.

In both cases I have tried various combinations of curves with gradient masks and contrast marks but remain to be wholly convinced! Any suggestions would be very gratefully received.

Many thanks

[Kraellin]

this one is definitely a bit odd, but not impossible. for the areas that are too light, i made selections and then applied levels to those selections to bring them closer to the original image. that done, i cloned the edges of those treated areas to hide the edge marks and blend things in together. i also cloned other areas, like the sky, the tall guy's suit, and lots of other small areas with scratch marks and such.

so, it was almost all selections with levels and then cloning.

on top of all that, i did one clarify to the overall image to bring some of the lighter areas out more.

and welcome to RP

[Smudger7]

Thanks Kraellin, this is great. I'd have been happy with a suggestion let alone an example of how good this restoration could be! I've followed your suggestions about levels and made some progress today (see attached) but know there are still bits to do.

Thanks again

[Kraellin]

good! definitely looking better. you can clone that sort of fold mark out. just work from both sides of the pants and a medium opacity on the clone tool and it shld come out just fine.

[Smudger7]

Thanks for the encouragement!