Old Photo: Silver Mirroring..help?

[dearley]

Hi everyone, I have a big problem with scanning and digitally correcting for significant silver mirroring on this old photo from 1950:

Attachment 74330

I tried scanning from different angles, scanning through vellum, and still get the reflection from the silver that has migrated to the surface of the paper. I've encountered it in photos before, but have been able to manage it, but this is the heaviest that I've had to deal with over a significant area of the image, and I'm not quite sure how to bring out the details without dealing with the severe gray-blue metallic haze. This one happens to be a personal one of my favorite uncle who died, and I'd really love to bring this up to a solid quality.

Could anyone give me some tips on how to tackle this?

Thanks! Donna

[unimatrix001]

Hello dearley.
I can see no photo attached to the link. just a thought maybe take a digital photograph with out a flash of the pic you want to scan.

[dearley]

Ok, let me try this again. The attachment didn't seem to work. Here's a link to the pic that I've been trying to work with:

http://picasaweb.google.com/Pendfami...eat=directlink

At this point, I am happy to tackle it digitally, though I seem to be falling down on the steps in working with the layers somewhere. Since this is the only surviving image of him during this time and has special significance to his children, I'm trying to get as close as I can to something presentable that can be replicated. I'd appreciate any pointers.

Thanks, Donna

[amica999]

Donna, I did the attached with one click using this plug in: http://home.planet.nl/~ber03728/4N6s...lugin/main.htm

[dearley]

Wow, thanks for that example using this plug-in. I think that while I recognize logically that the gray-blue haze coming off the silver's reflection are also just colors, and I am probably allowing the "metallic" look of the reflection distract and cloud my perspective on the digital correction. In looking at the description of what the plug-in is designed to address, would the metallic reflection from the silver fall under "obscuring color in the foreground"?

Thank you so much for your input!

[dearley]

Unimatrix, thanks for the suggestion on taking it w/out flash. Something is weird with my digital camera at the moment and it's skewing the images on one side, so I'm confined to digital fixes in the short term, but when I get my camera back I will also try it that way, too, and compare.

[amica999]

Welcome, I used the blue-grey as the undesired color and the brown of the uniforms collar for the desired color, left backgroung color as is (black). didn't do any other corrections though. As mentioned just one click :-)

[dearley]

That's great, thanks very much!!!

[0lBaldy]

I learned this method from 'Lurch' as posted here

Make a mask using calculations. Once you have the mask, load it as a selection and make a curves adjustment layer. The resulting layer mask will limit your curves action to the silvered areas. In this image, darkening the blue channel makes the silvering haze go away.

To make the mask, add a hue/saturation adjustment layer (temporarily) and increase blue saturation until the silvering is pretty obvious. Between +60 and +100. While the saturation-increase layer is visible, check the individual channels. In this image the red channel has a decent version of the image, while the blue is noticeably lighter where the silvering occurs. You want to make that lightness more pronounced so you can make a mask for the silvering.

So now you have blue channel with silvering showing. And you have a red channel with little if any silvering showing. You want to subtract the red channel (image info) from the blue one (image info + silvering info) to get a channel with just the silvering info, more or less. Remember this is all with the hypersaturated layer visible.

Go to Image>Calculations, apply the inverted red channel to the blue channel with the blending mode 'add' and send the output to a channel. the value in the scale box (2) you end up with a new channel that is mostly gray with light areas where there's silvering. To make the new channel a little smoother, apply a Gaussian blur - in this case about 1.5 pixels. For a mask you want the gray to be black, so increase the contrast with your method of choice. I use curves. (Any time after you generate the new channel you can trash the hypersaturated layer. Or at least uncheck the eyeball on that layer)

Once you have the new channel dark enough, load it as a selection and make a new curves adjustment layer. The resulting layer mask will limit your curves action to the silvered areas. In this image, darkening the blue channel makes the silvering haze go away.

[unimatrix001]

Another thing you might try is using the eyedropper tool and selecting a color near the center of his hat that doesnt have any of the silvering in it, then choose the brush tool and set the blend mode to color and paint away the silvering it does a pretty good job.

[TommyO]

Originally Posted by dearley

Unimatrix, thanks for the suggestion on taking it w/out flash. Something is weird with my digital camera at the moment and it's skewing the images on one side, so I'm confined to digital fixes in the short term, but when I get my camera back I will also try it that way, too, and compare.

I've used a digital camera with great success on these in the past. If you can hold the image, tilt it, and see a way with your eyes to eliminate the silvering... you can likely capture the same with the camera. The key is to use a tripod and delayed shutter. After that, you will have to correct the perspective in Photoshop. That's about it.

[Kraellin]

i've looked at this image pretty closely. it's a hidden stinker. and that simply means it's very deceiving as to what is wrong and how easy or difficult it will be to fix. it aint an easy one! now, you can do a fairly quick job of removing the silvering. that's easy. psp's color replacer tool and do that in a couple minutes or less. what's difficult here is that the degradation on the image is actual damage now. the underlying image has been eaten and altered and that means we need a rebuild.

rebuilds can be done several ways. you can go out and find a suitable cut and paste part, in this case a large portion of his uniform, or, if you're feeling particularly artistic, you can attempt to redraw the damaged areas. but, there is also a third option and this one may actually be the way to go on this one. turn this into a head and shoulders shot and eliminate a large portion of the damaged area. you arent losing anything very critical to the image and a lot of it is damaged anyways, so it's something to consider.

also, if you can post larger image sizes here it makes it easier for us.

attached is ONLY the work done with the color replacer, just to show how easy it is to remove the silvering here.

oh, and some noise removal would help on this image also.

[dearley]

After I pulled this back into PS and pulled it apart different ways, I think, Kraellin, that I see your point about the damage going beneath the silver on the surface, which is probably why I've struggled more with this one than others that I have worked on with silver mirroring. I've uploaded the larger files into this album that were from 3 different scans, and let me know if you see something different than with the smaller versions.

Thanks so much for these suggestions. I am going to do one as a bust shot and crop away the main offending portions, one with a little cut and paste if I can find a comparable with portions that I can integrate to get back some of the detailing lost, and will also try the more detailed suggestions to see if I can get it cleaner, and not end up with something too flat.

http://picasaweb.google.com/Pendfami...chingProjects#

Thanks, Donna

[Southbay]

My 2-minute drill was go B&W, futz w/ cyan, blue, magenta. Neat Image. Bit of usm. Then fade a brown tone on 'er.

[aartist]

I split r/g/b and worked on the r only.
Then used darken/lighten to remove dark/lightness patterns on jacket.
Added slight sepia.

[Cupcake]

Noise in CS3,
Light Painting, Painter blending on some parts.

If you like I have the large file.

[TommyO]

Southbay and Aartist,
I think you both did a very good job with it. Retains the original paper texture, yet repaired the underlying damage very well. I would think any client would be very pleased with these results.

Cupcake,
A bit soft and a bit dark for me, but otherwise very nice.

[Southbay]

Thanks TommyO. Thought I'd softened the texture a bit much, but it came back with the usm. Texture and sharpness...always a balancing act.

[aartist]

Thanks TommyO.

I agree Southbay.
Texture/Smoothness & Sharpness/Blurriness most always have trade-offs.
In restoration, I prefer whichever method comes closest to matching the
original photo. In the end the restored photo should retain it's photographic
quality and not become something other than a photo image of reality.

If the photo was shot out of focus, there is only so much you can do to
make it appear to be sharper without trading on it's original quality.

[Kraellin]

southbay,

futz w/ cyan, blue,

uhm, what was the 'futz' ?

[Southbay]

Yeah, I should elaborate more. I've picked up a lot here, and sharing is de rigueur. So, as near as I can remember it...futz revealed.

This is roughly where I went with the B&W layer. The brown tone came from the Pixel Genius PhotoKit B&W toning set, at maybe 40% opacity. Neat Image at 30%. USM...I'm pretty sure was 185/5/4.

[Kraellin]

thanks, southbay

[dearley]

Thank you so much for your examples of editing results with these different approaches! I posted my last version on that album link, which suffers, I think, from the over-softening with the uniform, and I feel that I still lost too much texture and aspects of the original that I was trying to hold onto in my last iteration (emmett army-3.jpg).

http://picasaweb.google.com/Pendfami...uchingProjects

Thanks again, Donna