Portrait (skin) restoration

[tuco1977]

Hi all, I have took the challenge, my first one , with the attached in order to practice photo restoration. My question is what technique would you recommend to recover such amarked skin (all those little stains and dots on the skin)? What I did is

- duplicate layer
- run median filter
- spot healing on remaining imperfections
- duplicate layer
- guassian blur on the duplicate and mask it
- remove mask on the skin

However when compared with the original, my result gives that blurry look. What technique am I missing to recover a skin from such imperfections?

Thanks in advance!
Matt

[Tony W]

The size of the image you posted is very small, is this the size you are actually working with? If this is the case then just drop the median and guassian blur and concentrate on removing major problem areas. The result may be noisy but at this size may look quite acceptable and in keeping with the age of the image

If the actual image is larger then IMO you are being a little too reliant on the blurring filters and in the process overdoing it by a large margin. Why not try and get it perfect before you resort to tackling the noise problems in the skin area?

[tuco1977]

Tony, thanks. The image is in fact very larger. You're very right, I may in fact be overdoing with the blurring effects. Can you clarify what do you mean with your last sentence as I did not get that and every tip counts :-)

Thanks again

[0lBaldy]

You might try frequency separation as discussed here

[Tony W]

What I meant in my last sentence was to try and get the image as near perfect as possible including density, contrast and blemish removal - ignore the grain for the moment. Once you have done this you may be left with a noisy/grainy image, at this stage you can experiment with technique to reduce/subdue the noise

[0lBaldy]

Matt, Welcome to RetouchPRO Hope you enjoy your stay here and make lots of friends. Poke around, ask questions, offer help, have fun!

If you use Photoshop you can post fairly large pictures which are under 100k using the 'save for web' function in Photoshop as described here:
Size, Quality and/or Format your Attached Images.. (Click here)

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, but also please attach an under 100K version (so the thread remains useful in the future, regardless of external links).
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.

I had a go at this photo..

some color replacement and correction for the stains
levels correction
Used polaroid Dust and scratch tool (both light and dark settings using a hide all mask then revealing the corrections)
a little cloning and healing
cloning using the lighten and darken setting at a lower opacity
some selective sharpening
light sepia tone

Much more experimentations went on trying other things and I have lost track what worked and what didn't.. so to explain in detail what I did... a lot of trial and error along with lots of patience and clicking

[Nezbitten]

I think "overcooking" it is a real danger here. There isnt that much that needs fixing. Embrace the grain and age of the photo instead of trying to make it look too new. Simply converting to black and white and tweaking the colour sliders in red and yellow to balance the stains. Then applying a subtle noise reduction with dust and scratches on minimum. Followed by a few passes of gentle frequency separation, after ten minutes, leaves a good base to do a bit of dodge and burn to bring up the contours of the face.

[tuco1977]

Hi Tony, Baldy, Nezbitten - thanks for your replies. Much appreciated and leading to good thoughts. Baldy, Im looking into that link right now which looks like it'll teach me something new...thanks a lot all.

[Xaran]

This is challenge 96 on RetouchPro.

Christine