How to begin with this very old photo....

[santalady]

I have been reading these forums for over a year now and have learned a lot from you guys. Today is my first post. Please look at this photo of my great, great, great grandfather. It is the only one I have ever seen of him. I would like to include it in a family history book that I am working on, but the quality is really bad. Even full resolution it is only 272.83kb (886x797pixels). I do not know who has the original photo. Anyway, I have tried running a FFT filter on it to get rid of the lines, etc. but it didn't help. I've tried a couple of noise and blur filters, but I don't know a lot about the settings and can't find anything that will get rid of the lines without totally getting rid of the little detail that is there to begin with. Can anyone tell me how to get to a good starting point? Or is it hopeless?

In any case, thank you for all the helpful information that I have already learned from all of you.

[0lBaldy]

Welcome to RetouchPRO Nice first Post! Hope you enjoy your stay here and make lots of friends.

I think this might have some good potential... is there a link to a full resolution version available?

If you want to post a larger resolution that is over 100K then you can host your image elsewhere and attach a link in the thread...

Other Hosts if you do not have your own site: ImageVenue.com (3Meg max, free) pixentral.com (2Meg max, free) photobucket.com (1 Meg max free, 5 Meg PRO) mediafire.com (100 Meg per file, free) post a link in the thread to the site that is hosting the larger image.

[santalady]

I have uploaded it to Smugmug and hope that this link works.....I've never tried to post a link before. If this doesn't work, let me know and I'll try one of the hosts that you listed.

http://ncsantalady.smugmug.com/photo...7_8hqed-X3.jpg

Thanks for your time and I look forward to your advice on this photo.

[0lBaldy]

I used the FFT available in Image Analyzer (free by MEESOFT)
Levels adjustment
and a little noise reduction
used the Patch Tool on the side of the building

[Cupcake]

Here is the smaller size.

Large size in your PM message.

[santalady]

Thanks OlBaldy and Cupcake. So now I know that the lines can be gotten out even though I have not been able to duplicate your results. Thank you both for your efforts and thanks Cupcake for the larger size. At least I have something that I can use in my book now even though I would still like to figure out how to achieve these same results. I am posting my results with FFT, noise & levels. Not very pretty!

OlBaldy does the FFT in Image Analyzer work differently than the FFT plugin from Alex Chirakov (from the tutorial on RP)? I downloaded Image Analyzer but it's not intuitive for me and I haven't been able to find any instructions for using it. It looks like it has a lot of great tools and I have seen some of them mentioned on RP before but I can't do anything with it. Is there a tutorial somewhere to use Image Analyzer?

Thanks again to both of you for your help on this photo.

[0lBaldy]

Originally Posted by santalady

OlBaldy does the FFT in Image Analyzer work differently than the FFT plugin from Alex Chirakov (from the tutorial on RP)? I downloaded Image Analyzer but it's not intuitive for me and I haven't been able to find any instructions for using it. It looks like it has a lot of great tools and I have seen some of them mentioned on RP before but I can't do anything with it. Is there a tutorial somewhere to use Image Analyzer?

Thanks again to both of you for your help on this photo.

The steps were:
1. load image
2. Operations>Filters>Frequency Domain Filter
3. color all the bright star/spot looking thingies except for the middle top (preview every once in a while... if it looks wavy or mucked up... cancel or exit and start over)
4. when it looks OK... click OK
5. save

There is a support forum for questions and answers here: MeeSoft Support Board » Image Analyzer Support

But I just dove in and tried everything and tried to figure it out

[santalady]

Thank you for those wonderfully detailed instructions and screenshots. That was exactly what I needed. I had been trying to use: Operations>Transformation>Fourier Transform

I used your directions easily and it was very helpful having the "Preview" button to see how my selections were effecting the image.

I'll also check out the support forum and hopefully get some information on the other tools. Thank you for pointing me in the right direction!

[0lBaldy]

Your welcome

You can also use the method you were trying in Transformations using Fourier Transform... just use the eraser from the tool bar to cover the spots... when finished covering the spots go back to Operations>Transformation> (and click) Inverse Fourier Transform..... This will bring the corrected picture which you can save or continue working on

(I find the other way much easier and get better results though)

Good Luck!

[marek]

be careful of using those tools.. you might lose the fence... hheheheh