Damaged Photo restoration Help

[antauri]

Hello guys,
Good day all. I dont know anything about photo editing much more of restoration. But I am in dire need for a photo restoration of an old photo of my grandfather's. The photo is all we have as visual memory of him and his family. below is the link for the photo, and that is the most resolution as it can get.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zTyGtuHI1oB5C_ra5nRgu_3SLt1XJ_EE/view?usp=sharing

I really appreciate if someone could help me.

Thanks

[JoReam]

Hi Antauri
Welcome to RetouchPro. Not sure what photo editing program you are using - you will need access to either something like GIMP or photoshop to carry out this restoration. The main areas of damage on this photo are the spotting, folds, lost surface information and missing corners. Photoshop and GIMP have tools like the healing brush, spot healing brush and clone stamp tool which you will need to use - ideally on a separate layer to hide/remove the damage. Its just a case of selecting clean areas and using those to cover the damaged ones either with the healing or clone stamp brushes. The spot healing brush does this automatically but is designed more for spots - just experiment hence why it is always a good idea to work on a separate layer and also in a new file so you do not damage your original. Sometimes the dust and scratches filter at a tiny level may help - say a couple of pixels may save you time - but it you choose a too larger pixel size with this tool you will make more work than save time. The other tools you will want to use are the content aware fill, content aware patch tools for the larger areas of damage and missing areas on the corners of the image... it will be a case of trailing different tools to see which works best for your purposes (not sure which of these fill tools are available in GIMP as I use photoshop). Globally you may want to make some levels adjustments and find the black and white points to improve contrast and then sharpen the image. There is no getting around it you will need to spend time to fix this image. Hope that helps. Have a look at the RetouchPro Live videos on YouTube - Doug hasn't loaded the videos on restoration yet but quite a few of the beauty retouching videos eg Chris Tarantino, show the use the clone stamp and healing tools as part of the retouching process.

[RetouchS1234]

Working on it!

[RetouchS1234]

Post your email for higher res

[JoReam]

Wow Antauri just seen the restoration you have posted - well done! (I have just logged in so had not seen your restoration till now) .

[Hellascad]

I tried something, hopefully better than nothing, I guess