? 50yr old photo on textured paper

[wils]

I'm looking for information/suggestions on restoring photos that were printed on textured paper. The texture is "bee hive" that is hex shaped. In both scanning and copying with a digital camera the pattern shows very much. Are there any good techniques (or proprietary plugins) for removing this? Gaussian Blur enough to remove it leaves the photo so blurry Unsharp Mask is no help. I use Photoshop 7 on a Macintosh.

thanks wil

[Jakaleena]

Here are some threads that might have some useful information for you (found by just doing a forums search for "texture"):

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2323&highlight=texture

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=565&highlight=texture

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3804&highlight=texture

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=992&highlight=texture

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3620&highlight=texture

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3626&highlight=texture

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3516&highlight=texture

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=3511&highlight=texture

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1328&highlight=texture

You might also check the tutorials. Things like airbrushing, smoothing unwanted texture, spotting with the history brush, etc. might have info or combinations of info that you can adapt to your needs. Check the challenges too to see if there's anything there in the descriptions that might be useful.

If you'd post a sample of what you're trying to work on it would be helpful.

[Ed_L]

Hi Wil,

Welcome to RetouchPro. We have a lot of very good tutorials here. If you scroll down about 15 or 20 tutorials, you'll find one about dealing with textures by Jak. These tutorials can also be found through the slide-out menu to the left of this message. Check out all the tuts, as there are many that will help you along some of the bumps in the road. We all have them, and this is a good place to look for help. Copying textured photos has also been addressed in at least one other thread. Try a search to see if you can find it, or maybe someone else can help.

Ed

[Ed_L]

Oooops! I'm typing as Jak is replying.

Ed

[wils]

Originally posted by Jakaleena

If you'd post a sample of what you're trying to work on it would be helpful.

Thanks Jak for all the forum links. I'm reading through them now. Attached is a sample of the picture. This one's from a scanner. I used a digital camera also. The picture was only marninally better (Minolta Dimage 7... 5 megapixel .tiff shot). I'd done a search on texture before posting here, but only saw forum posts for adding digital texture so thanks again for the list (I'm new to the site so guess I didn't do the search right)

BTW: Jak, I've been working with the decrack.atn you posted. It must not like something in PS7 for there were several steps it threw up it's hands at. But, looking under it's hood gave clues to what filters it was running and in what sequence. After using combinations of Hi Pass, Median, Levels, and Minimum (four different itterations) to build selections and then adjusting the pixels did suprisingly good at reducing the texture. I will try Gaussian then Unsharp to get rid of the rest, and then "paint" back in the eyes and mouth for detail, and redo the hex in those areas by hand.

Thanks Ed also... will get over to tutorials soon

wil

[KenB]

I gave this a try real quick and I got pretty good results..posting it here so you can see the results. Since the beehive pattern is very consistant throughout the entire pattern....AND a bad jpg compression is also very consistant , I wondered how the Alien Skin Image Doctor plugin/filter would do using the jpg repair feature, this is what I got ..took 1 minute.

Ken

[wils]

Ken,

That is good for such a quick run. I'm wondering how Alien Skin Image Doctor would do on the high resolution image I started with. Getting it down small enough to post and jpeg compression from both of us degrades it a lot. Will the jpeg repair feature work on tiff files?

wil

this thread has some very good examples... read Mig's posts

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=992&highlight=pattern+removal

[Jakaleena]

Originally posted by wils
BTW: Jak, I've been working with the decrack.atn you posted. It must not like something in PS7 for there were several steps it threw up it's hands at.

Actually, the credit for the Decrack action isn't mine, so I can't give you any info on why it isn't working for you. It's in the tutorials and was written by Tim Edwards.

Not sure which post you got the version you're using from, but there is one for PS 5.x and another for PS 6.x &7.x.

Maybe you have the wrong version?

All are posted in THIS THREAD

[KenB]

Wils, I checked it out on a TIF file and it worked just fine. If you're interested you can download a 30 day fully functional demo of Image Doctor here..

http://www.alienskin.com/idoc/idoc_main.html

Ken

[wils]

Thanks Ken, I'll ck it out.

also thanks Jak, I found the PS7 version of decrack.atn.. haven't had time to play with it yet

wil

[Flora]

Hi Wils!

I had a similar problem with an old picture of my father in law, which was also printed on textured paper.... (aaarrrgghh!!!).... So, after downloading you picture I followed the same procedure as with mine:

1) Run it through Neat Image.....
(a free, excellent program for removing noise etc.) which can be found here

2) I selectively run the Dust&Scratches Filter on the parts that still showed some faint texture

3) Added some noise.

It's far from perfect and it has lost some of its sharpness, but at least the texture is gone!!!

...and here is the result:

[Bob Walden]

Very nice job, Flora!

Bob

[Flora]

Hi Bob!

Thank you!....Most of the credit goes to Neat Image...though!!!!!...

[wils]

thanks Flora,

your results look great!

I downloaded the software... I use Macintosh so it may be a while till I run down a PC to test it on

wil

[Flora]

Wil

OOOOOOOOOooooppppppsssssss.....
I re-read your first message only now....of course you said it immediately...about the Macintosh.... Sorrrrrrryyyyy...