Where to begin?

[kevkevg]

I'm new to restoring photos. My biggest problem is removing these big scratches. I've found that if I try to use the clone tool to get rid of them the coloring on each side of the scratches don't match up. What would be the best way to remove them and get the coloring to match up?


http://i837.photobucket.com/albums/z...Easter1929.jpg

[0lBaldy]

Originally Posted by kevkevg

I'm new to restoring photos. My biggest problem is removing these big scratches. I've found that if I try to use the clone tool to get rid of them the coloring on each side of the scratches don't match up. What would be the best way to remove them and get the coloring to match up?


http://i837.photobucket.com/albums/z...Easter1929.jpg

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What kind and version photo editing software are you using?

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[brejon]

Hello I am new also and is just a real beginner that knows nothing and needs lots of help....please be patient with me.

[kevkevg]

Thanks for the reply! I've attached a cropped version of the above in under 100k and the repairs I have made so far. I'm not sure how to begin to remove the yellow tape mark on the left without messing up the background tree underneath it. Also, i'm using Photoshop CS3. Any help appreciated!

[0lBaldy]

I think I would just use the red channel and do the adjustments on it

Go to the Channels menu highlight the red channel (the eyeballs should be OFF on all the other Channels)
Select all (Ctrl+A) Copy (Ctrl+C)
Highlight RGB Channel (all 4 eyeballs (channels) should be active)
go to layers menu
New layer (Shft+Ctrl+N) Paste red channel (Ctrl+V)
Copy layer (Ctrl+J) change Mode to Multiply.. adjust opacity to suit

continue repairs

Tint later if needed

[Kraellin]

the trick with using the clone tool is to not try to do it all at once. turn your opacity down and your make your brush size smaller. do it on a blank layer with 'use all layers' turned on. small bites and work towards the same area from different directions, bringing in content from all over to make things look right.

[spotter]

The spot repair tool works quite well too on the smaller parts of damaged photos.
You can use the patch tool to keep the background texture, by getting the colours reasonably right with the repairing tools and then go back over with the patch tool afterwards.It works on flat areas the best.

[Florin]

Hi. I should change this into the gray scale, first. This will avoid tone problems. You have to use the clone tool, there is no way to eliminate the scratches but painting. As the clothes have strips, you'll clone up-and-dowm, in a vertical mode following the strips. Use later burn and dodge tool to retouch the strips. This pic is not an easy job.

[Rikard Rodin]

A few suggestions:
a) Make sure you start with a very high resolution image. You should be able to easily differentiate between something in the photo and surface damage. The difference will be that one has grain, one doesn't.
b) As suggested by Kraellin, clone small bits at a time. A good work flow is to start with the easy stuff. Areas where you have good clone sources from. This will make larger areas that are clean and which you can use to clone to other areas.
c) As suggested by Florin, definitely make the image grayscale first. Rather than converting the image to grayscale, however, use a black & white adjustment layer. Then adjust the settings to eliminate as much of the color variations as possible. In your image it seems that the darker areas have more magenta and yellow--using the black and white adjustment, you can make these lighter to match the rest of the image, helping to solve the original problem mentioned in your first post.
d) Another good practice when doing a major image like this is to gather some reference photos. Try to find photos that have the same lighting and same subject matter. Some restoration is really re-painting the image if there is nothing there to restore. When doing this you need to have a very good idea of what it would have looked like.
e) Something I do when working on a restoration is handle color and tonal adjustment as a last step. You want as much of the image as possible to do a restoration and ANY adjustment is going to lose some of the image detail--whether in the highlights or shadows.
f) Another good morale booster is to make a copy of your original image and put at the top of layer stack. Turn off visibility on this layer and as you work toggle it on and off to see how you're coming along.
g) Some images are best restored with patience and being meticulous. This can be boring and time consuming. So throw on some music, get comfortable and don't try to do it in a rush.
Hope these pointers help.

[Kraellin]

i wouldnt worry too much about the tree, but, if you must, a careful use of clone and airbrush and smudge shld do the trick fairly well. to start on this, i also first use 'fade correction' to bring the image out more. i dont know the equivalent in photoshop so you'll have to find that out, but a bit of shadows/midtones/highlights might work. after that it was all clone, smudge and airbrush on a blank layer. then, near the end i desaturated with a hue/sat layer.

i didnt try to do all the picture, just the tape area for the most part. you have to be quite careful, pick out what you think is tree and what you think is not and go from there. there is nothing definitive in mine. yours may turn out differently due to the nature of the damage over the tree. basically, you are rebuilding a bit here, so it's a best guess thing in those cases.