Help fix a double exposure

[KaLiBoS]

I have the same problem here with an old picture i scanned i have adobe photoshop and have been messing with it but cant figure out how to do anything that makes it look better can someone help?

[Tony W]

Had a quick play to get image ready for further work. Kept to basic photoshop tools as your version not known. This may help a little but there is still a lot of work needed. I did crop the image as I thought it looked a little better and also minimised areas to work on

1. Dup background layer (I always do this so I have the orig to compare)

2. Goto channels and select blue channel (this has the most undamaged information although generally not the best choice!). Select All then copy.

3 Back to layers add a new layer and paste your copied blue channel. Change the blend mode to either Luminosity of Soft Light.

At this point you should see an image with less apparent damage although more contrast.

4. New curves layer to correct the major areas of interest to be pleasing

5. Select the Christmas tree flared area and apply mask to new curves layer. Adjust curves to get somewhere close to rest of tree

6. Select the right hand side area where washed out and apply mask to curve layer and adjust to balance.

7. New layer and start using tools such as healing brush, clone & patch tools to heal the flare over the people

At this point you should be able to decide how much more work you want/need to do to make it acceptable.

[philbach]

Well if you took the photo and knew what was what, you could do more. Or you could aggressively crop the photo and slightly darken and blur the background.
That way you could concentrate your restoration on the principal subjects.

Something like this.

[Kraellin]

that's better than i thought you'd get, tony. nice

the two outside faces are a bit rough, phil, but the overall is a ton better. and where i normally like to keep all of a picture intact, i have to agree that in this case a crop might be smarter. there's a LOT of work in that background, otherwise.

[KaLiBoS]

Thanks for the help guys I really appreciate it!!