In an English country garden.

[chris h]

Just had this tossed at me by a relation. I've got rid of a huge amount of scratches/cracks etc and a little other dabbling but I've now reached a bit of an impasse. Basically there's not a lot there even in Tiff format, I could titivate the burned out blouse and (her) right sleeve which itself is a reconstruction but after that its a case of (in my opinion) flogging a dead horse. Any thoughts.

[thomasgeorge]

Love the sepia tone! You might try masking the face, duplicating it to a seperate layer , desaturate the duplicate, invert and try eiher overlay, like Vikki mentioned in another post, or softlight blending mode to lighten the face a little. Also, try global sharpening by duplicating the entire layer and running a hi-pass filter at around 3.9 or so then set blending mode to overlay to slightly sharpen the whole photo. Actually though, I like it the way it is. It exudes an air of antiquity and wistfulness. Tom

[chris h]

I've run it over several fences but as you say TG it might be better as it stands. I'm told it's 1920's- ish but I think its pre Great War circa 1914. The owner ( a great aunt) is in her 90's I think it might be her mother.

[thomasgeorge]

Her clothing is perhaps more representative of what you would expect from the early to mid 1920 era. The lack of exaggerated sleeves, etc., seems to suggest a later date than pre 1914...But I am probably mistaken. Tom

[chris h]

I'll ask the old girl who's print it is for more details. I find older people have razor sharp memories for events 50 years ago as opposed to 10 minutes ago. However she's usually awash on a sea of Glenmorangie so I'll have to pick my moment !

[Doug Nelson]

Overall its not bad at all. We didn't get to see the original (hint, hint), but aside from the spot in the lower right it could stand as is.

But...

Maybe try duplicating it onto another layer, running d/s filter or gaussian blur (your call) then erasing or masking the obvious lack of edge details such as eyes, foliage, etc.

Titivate?

[Vikki]

Chris,
I wasn't sure how far you wanted to go with this......but it looks very dark to me, especially in her face (could be my gamma). I assumed you wanted to improve that area, since it's probably what's most important.
I applied a technique you can find in Katrin's book on page 109, to clean up her face. (let me know if you don't have it, and want to know the steps) I lightened the picture by using Selective color - lightening the dark and midtone areas.

Here's what a quick fix did for her face. The version that's posted has a lot of jaggies, but I think you can still make it out.

[chris h]

Thanks D & V,

I've got the Eismann book back from a friend and I'll delve in it later today. I think I'll send a few versions back to the owner and see what she thinks.

Titivate, Slang for mild improvement, say if some guest was calling and you ran a rag over the dusty furniture you could be said to have titivated the room.

[chris h]

Had a little trouble with the Eismann technique but but eventually got the gist of it with a little help from a Vtec tutorial disc. I notice E mentions textured photo paper which was popular 20 years ago but mercifully for weddings etc a field I never got involved in !

I'm not going to fiddle about with every blemish there's more fine lines and spots on it than a London street map, although I'll desaturate it and give her a monochrome copy.

Nearly forgot here's the rough scan...........

[thomasgeorge]

You might try playing with a duotone look--sometimes applying a light to moderate sepia tone will hide a lot of small scratches etc. Just a thought... Tom

[chris h]

Thanks for the note Tom, I see more every time I look at it. Winter setting in here, first piece of old railway sleeper tossed in the woodburner today !