Faded photo thats beyond my newbie skills

[luvbug66]

Hi All

I'm new to photo repair. Am using PS elements 9.

I'm not doing too bad with most things but this photo has me stumped on how to fix it. I've tried multiple layers but it looks awful, levels doesn't do much. You can see from the edge of the picture the colour the poles should be.

Advice would be really appreciated.

Many thanks Alison

[chillin]

Whats going on with all these postage stamp size images?

[dataflow]

you can get good results by using "color Balance" and just lower the Red and Green channel plus increase the blue

[4N6site]

My attempt to recover what's left (enlarged by factor 2 to see what I am doing!).

[dataflow]

here is my result

[luvbug66]

Sorry Chillin. I was limited to less than 100kb for upload. :-(

[luvbug66]

Apologies to you also 4N6site. The original image is about 4mb or so. Yours and dataflows are amazing compared to mine.

Could you explain how you did it 4N6site, and Dataflow did you use the method described in your earlier post? Unless I'm missing something I don't have channels option in elements 9 :-(

[4N6site]

I used Photoshop's levels, and hue/saturation. I used a bit of dodge and burn to get rid of the horizontal 'shadow' in the middle (seems the photo was exposed to the sun while partly covered). Finally I used the sponge tool to reduce saturation where needed.

[luvbug66]

Originally Posted by 4N6site

I used Photoshop's levels, and hue/saturation. I used a bit of dodge and burn to get rid of the horizontal 'shadow' in the middle (seems the photo was exposed to the sun while partly covered). Finally I used the sponge tool to reduce saturation where needed.

WoW! Big improvement.

Ah ha 2 tools in there that I have yet to use. Have dabbled with dodge but yet to discover what sponge does.

Thanks very much. I am a greatful newbie :-)

[0lBaldy]

Originally Posted by luvbug66

Hi All

I'm new to photo repair. Am using PS elements 9.

I'm not doing too bad with most things but this photo has me stumped on how to fix it. I've tried multiple layers but it looks awful, levels doesn't do much. You can see from the edge of the picture the colour the poles should be.

Advice would be really appreciated.

Many thanks Alison

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

If you use Photoshop Elements you can post fairly large pictures which are under 100k using the 'save for web' function 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 (as you did here...except, link to the highest resolution.. or the largest size you can upload), 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) 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 did a levels using the white, grey, black droppers on the spots indicated.. then adjusted the color using a Hue/Saturation layer (adjusting the yellow and red)... Sampled a color from the forehead and painted all the bright skin spots on a new darken layer then reduced the opacity to about 55% ... A little Gaussian blur then combined all and healed some of the edges that needed smoothing...

I've included some how to save for the web captures...

Hope this helps some