Pixelation problems

[cypher000]

Hi everyone. This is my first post and I am hoping that there will be some who can help me out on two difficults photo's. The first is titled 'Lorraine' and is a mess, in the sense that it appears to be covered with a nasty mottling effect. The second is titled 'Samara' and suffers from a tragic pixelation. It was taken by the childs adoring parents using a very cheap, nasty digital camera. If anyone can help to give them back the picture they so desperately hoped for, I would appreciate it. I have tried all I know, using Photoshop 6 and failed miserably. The photos can be viewed at the following site.

http://grandads.instantlogic.com/PhotoGallery_Browse.ilx?&idAlbum={8982514B-FB3A-47AD-A3E8-C4067ADFF231}&Page=99

Many thanks to everyone who gives it a shot. cypher000

[Flora]

Hi cypher000,

Welcome to RP!

I had a go at your pictures.... I found Lorraine to be the "easy" one because, in spite of all the problems, it still had details I could work on .... Samara just didn't have enough details ....

[cypher000]

Hi Flora. Thanks for giving me some hope that these photos might be restorable. Loraine was a definite improvement on the original. Samara though, in spite of your thinking there was too little information, seems to me to be much much improved. The disturbing thing of course, to me, is the black outline which appears all around the dress. Given the camera it mwas taken with, I think you have done a really grand job. I would like to know the procedure, whether it is a Photoshop feature or from using a third party software. Hope you will share that with me sometime. Again, many many thanks for even bothering to have a go at the photo's. Walt.

[Flora]

Hi cypher000,

Thanks for your feedback!

Glad you liked my restorations... these are the kind of pictures I'm never really satisfied with the results I get....

I work with Photoshop CS, but didn't use any of its new features .... you shouldn't have any problems with PS6

I also used a third party software which is Neat Image .... which I think is fantastic and available as free demo on top of it!!

What I did is the following:

Lorraine

• Run it through Neat Image, concentrating on the dark parts of the picture (that's where most of the noise is...) Ctrl+A selected the corrected version, Ctrl+C copied it ... Ctrl+V pasted it on top of the Background.

• Created a Layer Mask (Hide All) on the new (corrected) Layer and with a white soft Brush revealed the now smoother dark parts.

• Merged visible.

TIP: to merge visible without losing any of the previous Layers do the following:

* Create a new empty Layer on top of all the others.

* Open your Layers Palette's Menu and, keeping the Alt key pressed, click on 'Merge Visible'.

A new Layer containing all your corrections will be created on top of all the other Layers containing each single step you took before. ....

• Used the Curves to lift the shadows a bit.

• Run Filter>Noise>Dust&Scratches to minimize the remaining noise.

*The rest of the restoration consisted of cleaning up the picture using the Clone Tool, enhancing individual details using different Layers playing with Blendings and Opacity, lightly blurring the image and lightly sharpening Lorraine only using Filter>Sharpen>Unsharp Mask.*

Samara

• Straightened and cropped the image.

• Used "Method 1: CURVES ADJUSTMENT LAYER and Method 2: LUMINOSITY MASK" as described in my Tutorial , to enhance the faded details.

• Run Filter>Noise>Dust&Scratches to minimize the noise.

Finished up the restoration the same way as for Lorraine (*..*)

P.S.

Did some minor changes to Samara ...

• Created a new empty Layer on top (Blending set to Lighten).
  With a soft brush, keeping the Alt key pressed, (the cursor turns into a color picker), I sampled lighter colour from the surrounding background, and carefully painted over the dark dress outline..

• I used the Smudge Tool to smoothen out Samara's outline a bit ...

• Tried to fix her right eye...

Hope the changes are visible in the attachment.....

Hope this helps.

[cypher000]

Flora, you are a genius. Thanks for the tips, I shall be trying them out you can be sure of that. I am really impressed with the work that you have done and I know that the anxious mother will be really impressed with the photo when I print her one out. Thanks again for being so kind and giving your time so freely. Walt.

[Leah]

Hi Walt - Here's my alternative take on the problem.

I started by downsizing by 50% as that seemed to be the level of the pixelation. Then I did some smudging along the most jaggedy lines and used Extensis SmartScale (of which I happened to have a free demo that came with a magazine this month) to resize it back up again. Then layered the original over the top to paint back in some detail on the face, adjusted colour slightly with levels, rotated, cropped and did some cloning to fill in the corners where there wasn't image information.

It's not great - there were really too few details captured to do much with the photograph - but it's a start.