[Flora]

Hi Karen,

I use Neat Image at the very beginning of my restorations (when necessary of course! )

I use USM or any other sharpening method as the very last step of my restoration .... even though, sometimes, I slightly sharpen the image along the way to boost it up a bit.

Hope this helps.

[celestine]

Flora,

I am pretty new to photoshop, so if I am asking some stupid questions, please don't laugh...

When you said copy the lightness channel to the RGB version, does that mean copy the channel to a new layer in RGB version? What is the reason behind that? Why don't you just directly work off the Lab mod?

Oh, I have to say that your works just amaze me every time I see them...

Celestine

[Flora]

Hi Celestine,

Welcome to RetouchPRO!

Thank you so much for your kindness....

...there are never stupid questions when you want to learn something... besides, I've been asked that same question by many others ....

The reason why I "copy the Lightness channel to a new layer in RGB version" is that the RGB mode is the only one in Photoshop where all filters and options are available ....

[kbeatrice]

Thanks for all the help everyone. After a lot of trial and error (and no healing or patch tools since I'm using elements...) here is my final version.

Flora, I can't seem to get the same tone in the hair you have, but your help has been tremendous!

Any input would still be appreciated - my goal is to get to the point where I can do this for a business.

Karen

[Flora]

Hi Karen,

Great Job!!!!

So glad I could help!

As for the tone in their hair.... (and everywhere else...) it is part of the colorization...

Originally Posted by Flora

Finally, I cleaned the picture, sharpened it with USM and colorized it lightly.

Create a Hue&Saturation adjustment Layer on top.
try these values:
Hue : 44
Saturation: 15
Lightness : 0

This should do the trick!!