How to make restore cleaner

[Colan]

Hi

I have been working on this photo and have improved the colour, cracks etc.

However I am stuck on how I can improve the blacks as they look washed out and scratchy and the grey which looks dirty.

Also on the screen the name on truck is visible, but not when printed, can I enhance this to make it stand out more.

Any ideas would be grateful

Thanks

[Leon William]

Re: How to make restore cleaner

Here I have few suggestions below

1. Merge the grays in to black color on the darker side(down portion of the truck)
2. Increase the contrast
3. Mask out the name with less exposure
4. Reduce noise using Photoshop camera raw noise reduction options

[skoobey]

Re: How to make restore cleaner

Dodge and burn

[John Wheeler]

Re: How to make restore cleaner

Hi Colan
Tough image to recover details yet here are my thoughts.

It may be just a limit of what you have posted, yet scanning at high resolution, in 16bit mode, to TIFF lossless compression gives a lot more information with which to recover details.

The screenshot below is after turning up clarity in ACR to increase the localized contrast and it is quite easy to see that the JPEG compression artifacts (square blocking) is a major limiter at least for the images you posted in JPEG.

If that is not your issue, I would increase clarity in LR or ACR as an approach to consider.

There may be more techniques yet the biggest limiter I see for the images posted is the JPEG limitations.

[Colan]

Re: How to make restore cleaner

Hi Leon

Thanks for your help. I will try these, but need to work on masking as I am not sure on it.

[Colan]

Re: How to make restore cleaner

Hi Skoobey

I have tried your tips and they make a big difference and are quick to apply.

[Colan]

Re: How to make restore cleaner

Hi John

Problem with posted image was due to the compression to get it down to 100kb for attaching. It was scanned in high res, but as a JPEG. I will use Tiff from now on when scanning. I can not see your screen in the post, can you post again if you still have it.

Thanks again to all who have replied.

[John Wheeler]

Re: How to make restore cleaner

Sorry Colan
I don't know why the image is not there. Could be pilot error on my part. It should be added below yet it will not be too meaningful after your explanation. When you use high compression to post on this forum, that is most likely the cause of most of the JPEG artifacts I am seeing. So I have no basis to indicate how much of an issue your original JPEG has as far as artifacts.
Just a general rule of thumb is to get the best possible image when scanning to allow as much adjustment without introducing artifacts. Going to lossless compression and 16 bit scans is what I typically use as a starting point.