Yellowed Photo

[Larry]

Hi, All

I have an old photo of my brother, from when he was in the Navy, laminated onto a wooden frame. It has yellowed and faded over the years and looks very much like the picture in restoration challenge #9. I applied different methods as described in the submissions, which are super by the way. Even went through Katrin's book. But I am left with a sort of muddy looking, streaky gray over the whole photo when I convert to the gray scale image. The suit and hat he is wearing should naturally be white, and the skin tones lighter. Any ideas?

Larry

[Ed_L]

Larry,

I'm not sure I would have any suggestions, but why don't you post the image? I'm sure you'll get some help.

Ed

[Larry]

Ed,

How do I attach the photo?

Larry

[Ed_L]

When you reply to a thread (or start a new one) look lust below the message box where you put your message. There is an "options" box, and an "attachment" box. Click on the attachment browse button, select your file from your computer, then send it. Just make sure to keep the file under 100K or it will not go through.

Ed

[Larry]

Answered my own question. I attached the photo. It seems that what was streaky yellow, is now just streaky gray.

Larry

[jeaniesa]

Larry,

I'm certainly no expert in this and I hope others have some better ideas for you. I took the liberty of downloading your file and trying a few things. (Hope that's OK.) First, it doesn't look as though there's much detail in the photo - esp. in the shirt. When I tried changing it to CMYK mode and looked at the "K" channel, it seemed like most of the information was there without the streaks. Working on just that channel, I adjusted the levels and then some of the streaks showed up, so I used the dogde tool set to highlights at a very low opacity (4% I think) and used a large soft brush to run over the shirt and hat. I worked a little on the face to highlight the cheeks, nose and teeth. Then added a little noise. I'm assuming you saved the file as a low-quality JPEG, since there seems to be a lot of JPEG artifacts. It's not great, but it's probably what I would start with to work on some more. I'd want to try to add a few more realistic shadows to the shirt to give it more depth. And I'd want to try to sharpen the features on the face if at all possible without making it look like a painting. Not sure how I would do that though. Anyway, I've attached what I did. Like I said, it's not great, but I think it's a step in the right direction.

Jeanie

Hmmm. After uploading it, it looks like it needs more contrast too - so I'd work on that as well.

[Larry]

Jeanie,

Thanks for the reply, and no problem at all about downloading it, I posted it for that purpose. I imagine that most of the detail is gone due to age and exposure to light. And yes, I posted it as a low level jpg so the file wasn't too big. I can upload another pic in psd format if you think that will help. But what you've done so far looks very nice. Better than I was doing, as I couldn't get away from the muddy gray. I'll give your method a try.

Larry

[thomasgeorge]

Larry, you might give this a try:
(1)convert to greyscale
(2)add adjustment layer,levels,set black point on tie, white point on hat
(3)flatten
(4)play with adj. layers--levels,curves and some of the blur/noise filters.
(5) try masking areas of similar shade and use a combination of curves and airbrush at low setting and cloning.
Just some thoughts----Tom

[Mig]

What Tom said is really good here, Larry, especially about adjustmen layers. I would add that you should convert to grayscale via the channel mixer. Just click "monochrome" at the bottom left of the dialogue box of channel mixer and then play with the sliders. To give the picture more depth, make a selection around your brother and invert the selection and then darken the background with curves or whatever tool you're comfortable with, and then add some noise to reduce the jpeg block. Invert the selection again and then work on your brother, lightening the uniform, and adding noise once more when you're done. Amongst that you might want to add a large halo of light around his head to give the picture depth, like you might see in a studio shot.
There isn't much information in the picture left, but there is some.

[Larry]

Mig, Tom,

Thanks for the info, I'll give both suggestions a try. There's a lot more definition in the original scan than the jpg I uploaded so I shouldn't have a problem with artifacts.

Larry

[Larry]

Hi, All

Thanks again for all your help. I experimented with all your tips, and here is what I came out with. Let me know what you think as this is my first attempt at a restoration. I left some of the gray streaks in the uniform jacket to try and give some shape to the sleeves, v-neck, etc. Don't know if it worked well or not. Thanks.

Larry

[Doug Nelson]

Very cool! Good work, especially for your first.

Congrats. Now, on to the Challenges

[thomasgeorge]

WOW!! You even brought out the beaded dogtag chain in fantastic detail! Excellent job. By the way, could you describe the laminate which is covering the photo? Is it plastic or more like a transparent varnish/glue? Thanks Tom

[Larry]

Thanks for the encouragement. I will try a couple of the challenges. The "laminate" seems to be a transparent varnish or some type of poly coating.

[thomasgeorge]

Thanks for the quick reply. Sounds like the "decopage"(spelling?) syndrome--could even be Elmers glue or some other type of transparent adhesive--at least we all now have an idea how to proceed when we are given one like that to work on--thanks for sharing it with us. Tom