Grandparents Restoration

[Nu2retouch]

On a recent trip home, I found an old picture of my grandparents. It was in pretty bad shape, and I thought about restoring it. I really haven't done this before, but this photo gave me the inspiration to try.

I have PSE6 and really only use it to tweak my digital pics, so this was a stretch for me. I'd love to hear comments on how I did, and more importantly what I did wrong, and what your suggestions are to improve it.

This is my first attempt at posting, so I hope I get it right. Thanks in advance for your help.

[aartist]

Overall, nice restoration of your family photo. Congratulations!

Things in the order I perceived them as being off:
Color is somewhat over-saturated. Maybe reduce by 25%.
The bright baby blue neck ties and handkerchief
The lady to the right, her eyes may be too bright even after toning down the saturation.
The brides necklace area, not sure, but aren't they large loop buttons?
The flowers could possibly look better as pale pink?
Lastly the color of the dresses may need tweaking some.
Oh yea, bring back the far right ladies belt buckle.
You may want to bring out just a hint of beige color to the background.

Your restoration is fine without the above suggestions and is worthy of framing and hanging on your wall to be admired by everyone. Great job and great family history!

[DCobb]

I am not an art critic, but I like what I see. If I saw the before and colorized after on display, I would be very impressed with the colorized copy. Well done.

dc

[Nu2retouch]

Aartist thank you for the suggestions. That was exactly what I was hoping to get. I did some adjustments to what I had earlier. I think you kinda lose your objectivity when you keep looking at the pic in photoshop. When I did see it posted here, I did notice that the colors were too saturated. I did decrease the color. I also did see that eyes were too bright. So I went back and lowered the brightness of that too. I changed the flower color to pinkish.

The woman on the right seems to have some shadows or folds in her dress. I didn't look like a belt. So I just went in and lightened the shadows up. Did it help?

The brides dress and the ties and also the shirts on the guys have been bothering me also. It almost seems like it's too bright, and too dark at the same time. It wasn't blown out, but I couldn't whiten those areas, and at the same time, it won't take color either. So I was very limited as to which colors would even show up there. Any ideas what can be done to improve those areas?

I added some sepia to the background. Do you think it helps, or makes it worse?

Thanks a lot for your help. Any other suggestions are very appreciated. Thanks a lot.

[aartist]

I like the hint of background color you added.
If you look at the original, you should see the ladies belt buckle.

Great Job, I'm liking it!

[TommyO]

Rob,
I like the second version much better. Colorizing is a bit subjective, making it difficult to critique. I simply prefer older images with only a bit of color, similar to what they would have done in those days to color it. So, that is why I prefer #2.

You may also want to experiment with adding back just a little of the original grain. All of the restoration work has softened it quite a bit, which is always a tell-tale sign of the restoration.

Also, as a matter of adjusting the image to draw our attention to the newlyweds, you may wish to adjust the contrast of the woman on the right. Being lighter, our eyes tend to wander that direction.

Otherwise, it is coming along nicely. Funny how they didn't smile for photo's back then, even for a wedding.

[Nu2retouch]

Thanks for the kind words and great suggestions. I know I'm not anywhere in the league that most people here are, but you gotta start somewhere. I love getting critiques, it's the only way to learn.

Aartist, I went back to the original, and I can see what you mean. The darker areas in the woman's waist are folds in the dress, and the lighter part, that looks like a buckle is really spots where the picture was missing. But you're right, it DOES look like a belt.

TommyO, good idea about the woman on the right being a bit bright. I didn't notice that all, but now that you mention it, she does need a bit of darkening.

I'll continue tweaking the pic. Thanks for the help.

Any other ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Thanks a lot!!

[Cupcake]

The eyes need to be redone, some what like this.

[aartist]

So, you are saying the item within the red circled area is not a belt buckle?
Edit: Oh well, it's the perfect spot for one and if I didn't have the original
photo to verify, she would have one whether she wants one or not.

[Nu2retouch]

Yea, it's the paper underneath the photo. A few small flakes fell off the photo.

[Gary]

Originally Posted by Nu2retouch

On a recent trip home, I found an old picture of my grandparents. It was in pretty bad shape, and I thought about restoring it. I really haven't done this before, but this photo gave me the inspiration to try.
I have PSE6 and really only use it to tweak my digital pics, so this was a stretch for me. I'd love to hear comments on how I did, and more importantly what I did wrong, and what your suggestions are to improve it.
This is my first attempt at posting, so I hope I get it right. Thanks in advance for your help.

Great restoration and coloring!

With your finished work, I added selective curves adjustments and lighting to add contrast and less of a 'flat' look. To add a bit of color to the window light, I painted with yellow on an empty layer in color mode.

[TommyO]

Gary,
Also nice. Maybe some selective masking could help. Unfortunately, it has brought out a lot of unwanted grain/noise in the darker areas on the left, in some of the mens' jackets, plus a bit in the wedding dress. The window does look rather nice.

[Gary]

Thank you.

In this case, I added overall noise in keeping with the 'older photo look'.

Cheers.

[mglenn]

I'm new here, so this is my first post. Your final picture looks great, lots of hard work! The only thing that I will add is that the men's faces should have just the tinyest smidge of cheek color. They look kinda dead right now. Also you might think of using PS to alter the brides mouth to a faint smile. She does not look happy and probably would not want her future generations to see her like that on her wedding day.
Good luck!

[Kraellin]

i had a go at just the restoration. a good colorization begins with a good restore.

[alira]

I have a similar type picture that I would like to restore and add some color too. I also use photoshop elements. can someone please tell me the exact steps to take to do this. all i know is to use the healing brush or spot healing on small specks and clone tool on bigger ones . thank you

[TommyO]

Alira,
It's always better to start a new thread, not append an existing one.

With regard to the "exact steps", between this thread and thousands of others on RetouchPro, you should find what you need. Try using the the Search function (drop down at the top of the page), then the Advanced Search. Look only within the Restoration forum. Then again, you may not need to do a search, as most of the threads in the Restoration forum deal with similar images. Just do some manual trolling through those threads.

[alira]

okay, thanks will try looking some more. it did seem that the ones I did look at, the threads just showed the before and after with very little explanation. also this one was so similar , fix old b/w , then colorize using photoshop elements rather than photoshop.

as far as tacking onto a previous thread, different boards seem to have different policies concerning this. in future will start a new note.