Wretched lines

[aspi]

Hi folks,

I'm new here, but I have been doing photo restorations for a long time on my own. I have managed some good results, but don't have any formal training so I have LOTS to learn. I often work on antique photos that friends and relatives send to me and I have several like the one I am presenting here.

Lucinda has been confounding me for about a week now so I thought I would see what kind of advice you guys have.

There are two photos. The first is the original as it was sent to me. The second, in the following post is my restoration of it.



Any help will be welcome!

[aspi]

Lucinda redux

Here is my restoration of the photo. The image is improved, but nothing I try gets rid of those danged lines!

Thanks for looking,

[CJ Swartz]

Chris, welcome to RetouchPRO! Always nice to have people with lots of experience join us. As far as formal training, lots of us have learned from experience, from reading, and from practicing techniques that we've learned here in these forums, so you should feel right at home.

Are the lines from a texture on the photo itself, or is it moire that was added during the scanning process? (We all hate moire! )
If it was added during scanning, there are techniques that can reduce the lines by doing another scan. If the lines are a texture on the photo, then it's a bit harder -- such as making a selection of the background and blurring to eliminate the lines, then adding back some noise to make it look more natural. Then selecting her face and softening the lines, then selecting her hair, etc.

What have you already tried, and how did it work for you? You certainly improved the contrast and general look of the image with the work that you have done already. What software do you use - Photoshop, Paintshop Pro, something else?

[aspi]

Hi CJ,
Thanks for the warm welcome and the kind words.

The photo belongs to a friend of mine who scanned it and sent it to me via email. From the way the photo looks, I would say that the texture is probably not in the original photo, but was something that was the result of a poor scan. And since I don't have the photo in my possession, I'm stuck with the results of the scan.

I have both PSP7 and PhotoShop6, though I have been using PSP longer and am more familiar with it, so I use that most often. I know I should probably migrate to PhotoShop, but well....sigh.

[Mig]

I'm not sure what you did in your attempts to repair the lines, but it looks like the lines may be more prominent. You can use the clone tool to fix up small areas and once you've cleaned up one area then you can copy paste this into different sections. This is one of the ways I used to do it. In other words, make one section healthy, and then borrow from it to smooth out other areas, as opposed to trying to fix each line one by one.
There is a filter called EyeFidelityTools that works with photoshop that gets rid of this type of moire very well, as you can see from the attachment, which at least shows it's possible to get rid of those lines. Unfortunately you can't buy it anywhere, but it's available in beta and I'm sure some people on this site and other places have it.

Keep trying. Part of the fun is in learning what works and what doesn't.

Mig

[roger_ele]

Great job Mig, I am afraid I got an idea and ran with it, I didn't even think of using a anti texture program ... Here is my version - and the general steps

Checked out channels then converted to grey through LAB

Created a layer filled with grey in overlay mode - painted on it to lighten and darken lines until the pattern was "lots of little spots without lines", then flattened

Added a little Texture - sandstone

Used unsharp mask 33-250-1 to accentuate shapes not detail

Duped background, to new layer applied motion blur, vertical and changed the amount until it cancelled out the lines. Added mask to this layer and painted out face and some of the surrounding. Flattened

Added just a tad more sandstone texture

Converted to RGB and colorized with hue/saturation

Used dodge and burn to taste and did some cloning cleanup ... liked to keep some of the old and natural look of the original, and I like the fact that it looks a little bit like wood.

Quite a challenge, Roger

[aspi]

Mig and Roger,
Thanks so much for the tips and advice. I downloaded EyeFidelityTools and am taking a look at what it does. Very nice program. I hadn't thought of splitting the channels. Will try that.
Everyone is so great here. I wish I had found RetouchPro ages ago.

[LactoBeeZor]

Welcome Chris;


Don't we all:

"I wish I had found RetouchPro ages ago."

[jeaniesa]

Hi aspi and welcome to RetouchPRO!

I'm a little late chiming in here, but is there any chance you could ask your friend to scan the photo again? Since the lines don't seem to appear on the bottom of the picture, it does seem like a bad scan. Just say that you will be able to give your friend a much better final product if you had a cleaner scan to work with. Explain the problem you're having with the scan they sent so that they know what to try to fix in the new scan they do.

That's what I would try first, though it might depend on the relationship you have with this friend whether it's feasible or not.

Jeanie