I'm stuck

[renegade_chef]

Hi there,

I'm new here, but have been following for awhile. I'm trying to restore image for a friend. There are two people behind the white area. I have adjusted the levels, curves etc, etc. No matter what I do it still looks heavily pixelated and really bad. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

[John Wheeler]

Hi renegade_chef and welcome to the posting in the fourms

You have a bad case of blown highlights. The luminosity "depth" is insufficient to pull out detail (at least from the JPEG image that is posted).

The good news is that if you or your friend has the original, a better scan can go a long way to recovering any details that exists in the original

This requires scanning at 16 bit depth per channel by a good scanner. I do suggest doing the scan as a color scan since that extra information can sometimes help as well. If you do not have this capability, there are no doubt services that can do this for you.

I use a slightly older Epson scanner with software from LaserSoft Imaging (Vuescan software should suffice). It allows me to scan at high bit depth and actually adjust the scanning exposure (not just post processing). This is identical to techniques used in HDR which allow combining multiple images at different exposures.

That would yield a better result than any post processing with just an 8 bit depth image. Hope this helps

[Jerryb]

hi,
my 2 cents worth...
1. i would rescan... definitely higher bit like previously mentioned and also at higher ppi/dpi. the sample image you gave showed only 72 which for poor picture is too low i would go at least 300 if not higher.. and like John mentioned scan in color...

2. if you used the automatic adjustments in the scanneer software I would turn that off and go to manual...

bottom line you want grab as much picture data as you can...

3. something i do sometimes... where i have a real blown out area
i'll dup layer then apply a multiply blend and i'll dup that layer a few times to try to bring out the blown areas... then i''l merge the the good area of of the orginal with the, hopely improved areas, where it was previously blown..

[renegade_chef]

Thanks for the tips. I will try them.

[0lBaldy]

renegade_chef, Welcome to RetouchPRO
Hope you enjoy your stay here and make lots of friends.
Poke around, 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 to the highest resolution.. or the largest size you can upload), but also, please always attach an under 100K version in the thread 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) dropbox.com/tour (2GIG, free) post a link in the thread to the site that is hosting the larger image.
(link to the highest resolution.. or the largest size you can upload)

I would try to make three scans using the following selections for each individual scan then combine them in Photoshop