Partly faded oval photograph

[invertedworld]

Hi

I am looking for some advice about how to restore a partly faded oval shaped photo of my grandmother. As you can see it has been displayed for many years in a frame in which the border covered the outside of the picture, meaning only the central section that was exposed to the sun became faded.

I am fairly proficient in Paint Shop Pro 7 and also have Photoshop CS4 but would not say I am an expert! Any advice about how to approach this would be much appreciated.

The photo is here:

http://imgur.com/RNEQg

Mark

[4personnen]

Hi!
There is another thread with quite the same problems (and solutions ), there:
http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/pho...nd-damage.html
HTH

[invertedworld]

Great, thanks very much.

[Cameraken]

Hi

I enjoy doing these.

I used the blue channel for the outer area and the red channel for the inner area.

More info here

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/pho...ged-slide.html


Regards

Ken

[mistermonday]

Ken, excellent job!
Regards, Murray

[igraim]

Ken. you have done an amazing job!
Could you give more clues?
thks

[Cameraken]

Hi.

Thanks for the comments. I’ve not been around for a while – been busy with websites - however I hope that I should find a little more time in the future.

How it was done.

Take a look at the channels. The red channel is the cleanest and contains the most detail in the ladies eyes and face however it contains little detail in the lower area of the ladies cardigan or the upper windows in the house.
These missing details are present in the blue channel.

Copy the red channel onto a layer and loosely select the lighter oval area. Add a levels adjustment layer and adjust the levels to 0, 0.25, 255
The result is in my layers pallet as ‘red done’

Now the blue channel
Copy the blue channel onto a layer and add a layer mask. Paint in black to let most of the red layer show through in the centre area. (see the blue layer)

See the first picture.

Now that the luminosity is almost done the colour can be added back. Drag a copy of the background to the top and stack and set the blending mode to colour.

A little cloning is required round the edges of the oval

The picture is almost done but has a yellow cast.
Add another levels adjustment and adjust the levels

Red – no adjustment
Green 0, 0.95, 255
Blue 0, 1.31, 255

That gets us to picture 2

That’s the main bits done. The rest is a bit of painting, cloning, sharpening etc. and I rotated it straighter.

My layers pallet up to this point is in picture 3

Hope this helps. Just ask if you need any more info (I use PS7).

Regards

Ken

[igraim]

Thanks a lot for a clear instructions.

[invertedworld]

Ken

Your work is incredible - thanks very much for the advice.

Will try to follow through the tutorial and see how far I get!

Best wishes

Mark

[invertedworld]

I seem to have fallen at the first hurdle! I can see how to toggle the visibility of the separate channels but how do I copy a single channel as a new layer? When I try to duplicate the original layer and then delete the green and blue channels it forces me to merge all layers which I know I don't want.

[mistermonday]

Go to the channel palatte, click on the channel, select all, copy; now go back to the Layers palette, click on the top layer (or background), then Paste. The image will be grayscale, but just change the blend mode to Luminosity. The goal is to graft the luminosity from a good channel(s) to repair the image. Painting on a layer mask allows to to blend in only the areas which are good. In this image you will need to patch part of the image from the red channel and part from the blue channel. Later you will need to make some color corrections with curves or painting on a color layer.
You could take a number of other approaches to this image. Dodging & burning would work but would take you much longer. A bunch of curves would also work. Ken's method is relatively fast for this image.
Regards, Murray

[Cameraken]

Hi.

Murray has suggested setting the blending mode to luminosity, this works equally well but I left the blending mode of the red channel in normal. I prefer to fix the luminosity in B&W first and add the colour back later, but that’s just a personal choice.
As Murray says, there are many ways to fix this/any photo.

Photoshop also gives us many ways to copy the channels to layers; it’s even possible to work on the channels directly as in steps 1a, 1b and 1c here
http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/?m=show&id=304

Another way is with the Channel Mixer (monochrome checked), this is especially useful for mixing channels. More info here
http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/?m=show&id=255

I also found this
http://retouchpro.com/tutorials/?m=show&id=245
A similar problem, however the method used is probably not appropriate for this image.


Regards

Ken

[invertedworld]

I've been asked to do a similar job on a photo of my parents' wedding. As with the other picture, the central area has been badly faded by the sun. I've done the best job I can with the limited tools and knowledge available, but rather than bringing back memories of their special day I seem to have transported them to a nightclub! Any tips for how to bring out the original detail, such as faces without making a mess of everything else? I have access to Photoshop CS4, Paint Shop Pro 7 and iPhoto 11.

You can see my effort and the original scan here:

http://imgur.com/a/f99HW

Mark

[Tony W]

The problem I see with this image maybe twofold.

First there is so little discernable detail in the faces with the exception of the eyes and also I suspect the original picture is actually out of focus compounding the detail problem.

Secondly the scan is probably fairly low quality.

I would suggest if possible rescan at the highest dpi you are able to get and also in 48bit (16 bit) colour. Adjust the scan histogram prior to saving to maximise the information without clipping either highlight or shadows - no guarantees but it may just help you to get a little more image information that you can work with