struggling with an old polaroid (dark + scratches)

[questdvd]

Hi, i'm fairly new to these forums yet I have been watching and participating in the challanges on the site for a few months, and have really enjoyed working with old and damaged images. Im new to photo retouching but i'm fairly acomplished with photoshop as im at college studying graphic design.

My mum recently dug out an old photo (a polaroid taken about 25 years ago) of my older brother and sister and her. the trouble is it hasn't aged very well at all. there are lots of dust and scratch marks on the photo, as well as brightness/contrast issues which take away the effect of alot of the image (for example my mums eyes blending with her hair)
I've taken a look at what some of the users here have done and i im nothing short of amazed at what people have produced.

I've enlarged the photo and was wondering if anyone could maybe help or give me advice in he next steps of restoring this photo to its best possible state..

Any help at all is welcome.. thanks alot
Pat

http://www.kapture-it.co.uk/image.ph...k/10025183.jpg

[winwintoo]

Hi Pat, the link you provided doesn't seem to work.

Do you think you could add it as an attachment here?

Thanks, and welcome to RetouchPRO

Margaret

[sage150]

struggling with an old polaroid (dark + scratches)

Hi Pat,

I downloaded your photo which was a little tricky getting
to the site.I had to delete everything except the web page
home address and then when I clicked back on my browser
button it suddenly came up.
I am a newbie on this forum and the first day I came on I
saw a link to a site where they offer a program called,
Neat Image.

The site is at:

http://www.neatimage.com/index.html?K

Just copy and paste into your address bar on your browser.

Believe me I'm not even a good amateur yet when it comes
to restoring photograph's but I tried your image in the Neat
Image program and did a little flesh coloring,used a bluring
tool and came up with this.

I'm certain that there are more advances users on the forum
that can give you some more techniques.
This is what I came up with in just a few minutes.
I use Photoshop along with Neat Image.

[sage150]

struggling with an old polaroid (dark + scratches)

Hi Pat,

I configured your photo for the web because it was to
many K to upload.
Your Poloroid is attached.

Joseph

[winwintoo]

Thanks for doing that Joseph, but it would be nice if we had an original scan to work with - provides more of a challenge

Margaret

[sage150]

Hi Margaret,

That is interesting.I didn't know that about the original scan.
I just read how to get a photo ready for the web in photoshop
and I was able to get the photo down from around 800k
to about 50 some odd K.I guess it must have to do with the
size of the pixels? I'll have to read more on that.

Thank You,

Joseph

[winwintoo]

Sorry, I meant that the image you posted just above here has already had a lot of work done on it - cloning etc.

It would be nice to see the original before any work was done on it.

I saw the one you posted where you did some work on it - good job by the way - but Neat Image can do a better job if you have the original before any cloning is done on the scratches.

Margaret

[questdvd]

i've just logged on, not even expecting a reply and already i've had a wonderful reproduction made which looks an aful lot better and more interest in the photo..
Thanks alot sage, really looks great.

Margaret and Wintwoo, thanks for your interest.. sorry the picture couldn't be displayed for you.. try this link if your still interested.. it should work. (click the thumbnail for the large image) unfortunately my scanner is very poor quality, will have to invest in a new scanner.. so i got a friend to scan it and he cropped it down a little.. thats why it doesn't look much like a polaroid. all i done then was enlarge it a a little.. so hardly any work has been done to the image apart from a crop and resize..

http://www.kapture-it.co.uk/show_ima...ge_id=10025183

Thres some very talented people here.. i really cant wait til i get as good as some of you people. i'll be visiting here much more often.
Thanks again...
any other suggestions welcome..

Pat

[sage150]

My pleasure Pat.Actually I was just trying to give you an
example of what Neat Image can do to an image.I was
really flabbergasted when I put it to use the other day.
I must read the Doc's on it. I just used it on the fly.
It's pretty neat, I guess that's why they call it that.

On the Poloroid Image itself.I would love to see what someone
can do to the shadows around the lady's eye's.
I have a problem making an image sharper and in bringing
out shadows and turning on the anatomy of an individual so
that you can see them more clearly.

Hoping that someone makes an attempt to do that.

Joseph