How should I begin with this?

[curtism]

Would everyone please take a good look at the attached photo. I have not seen damage such as this before. It appears to be water damage on top of silvering but don't hold me to that. Additionally, there is significant noise/grain that resists noise removal programs except at settings which make the skin like plastic.

The image has been scanned at 600 ppi with everything turned off. I tried rotating 90 & 180 degrees with no improvement in the scans.

What do you experts suggest? I'm willing to try anything if you will provide a description of what you have done.

Thanks in advance,

Curtis

[Flashtones]

i haven't seen it but i wonder if this rental would be of help

http://www.youtube.com/retouchpro#p/.../0/gOR1BDZLiLM

[John Wheeler]

Hi Curtis
The rentals are always a good way to go giving lots of angles and details. Last May I developed a technique for combining color channels to cancel out undesired elements in the image. I use that technique in a variety of ways. I used it to get rid of certain Moire patterns yet it works on a wide variety of other problems as well. Here is the image using such approaches with some sharpening added in:

2011_0929-21-ANWTRM.jpg

Here is a link to my blog and a video that demonstrates that technique. If the video rental does not do the trick, this alternate approach might be worth a shot as a starting point.

http://jkwphoto.blogspot.com/2011/05...ove-moire.html

[Tony W]

Nice job John, must revisit your technique as I only tried it on moire

Another way that may help:

• Hue/Saturation layer select the blues and increase dramatically to define the stain area
• Stamp the layer Ctrl+alt+shift+e (PC)
• Use Color range select tool to select the blues this forms the basis of your mask
• Add a curves layer (your mask should be added automatically) and adjust to balance density and contrast
• Finally channel mixer set to monochrome
• Optional select your method of adding sepia tones

Still plenty of clean up to do patching cloning etc but it may help to get you nearer to your desired result

As to the noise/grain you mentioned have you tried scanning at a higher ppi 1200 or even 2400? It may not help but you could be seeing artefacting including pixelation? I did not attempt either sharpening or noise reduction on this image

[curtism]

Thanks to Flashtones, John and Tony for responding to my plea.

I tried Ctein's technique before posting but the results were underwhelming. Tony's advice to scan at higher resolution helped mitigate the noise (I scanned at 1200 dpi.). John's technique is not yielding good results for me but I believe that's just a lack of skill on my part. I will try Tony's technique after lunch and report back.

This has been a great learning experience for me as well as a reminder to experiment a little before crying out for help.

Thanks again, guys!


Curtis

[Cupcake]

Turn in to B&W use red filter, back off on blue filter.
Heal some spots, make sepia and add color.

Large file if wanted.

[Veralisa]

creative thinking around that problem, cupcake. Really nice work.

[Cupcake]

Thanks Veronica

[jeremy1986]

I added a duplicate image on a different layer. I converted the top layer to black and white with the Infrared effect, i then set the layer to the mutiply mode. It still likes quite a bit. but it brings a lot of the details back to work on.