Photo restoration

Phil_LPhil_L Registered Users Posts: 106 Major grins
edited March 31, 2007 in Finishing School
I'm trying to restore old photos for a family album.

Below is a scaned photo of my Mother and uncle Philip taken around 1919 together with an attempted restoration.

Original scan:

139315709-L.jpg

Attempted restoration:

139315804-L.jpg

Can somebody suggest how I can get rid of the residual grunge on the photo or should I just accept it as is?

My attempts to clean up have mainl resulted in just smudging the muck around and not really cleaning it up. :scratch

Feel free to try a restoration, give me a few tips or give me some feedback on the result.

tia :D

Phil

Comments

  • evorywareevoryware Registered Users Posts: 1,330 Major grins
    edited March 28, 2007
    Phil_L wrote:
    I'm trying to restore old photos for a family album.

    Below is a scaned photo of my Mother and uncle Philip taken around 1919 together with an attempted restoration.

    Original scan:

    139315709-L.jpg

    Attempted restoration:

    139315804-L.jpg

    Can somebody suggest how I can get rid of the residual grunge on the photo or should I just accept it as is?

    My attempts to clean up have mainl resulted in just smudging the muck around and not really cleaning it up. headscratch.gif

    Feel free to try a restoration, give me a few tips or give me some feedback on the result.

    tia :D

    Phil

    I just recently started trying my hand at this and it's not always easy. I'm using Elements 4.0 for this and was about to post two pics for critique. I got rid of the residual stuff and a slight sharpen and eye touchup on the girl, but I didn't change it to BW.

    restore2.bmp
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  • digismiledigismile Registered Users Posts: 955 Major grins
    edited March 28, 2007
    There are lots of techniques to use when restoring photos. First let me recommend some good reading: Restoration & Retouching (1st, 2nd, 3rd Editions) by Katrin Eismann. There are plenty of examples of working on old, extremely damaged photos.

    What are you using as your photo editor? A lot of times you will find that the damage very often appears more prominently in one of the 3 color channels. Since your are remaining monochromatic, you may be able to discard one of the channels and blend the remaining two.

    Assuming you have photoshop, the dust marks can be improved using the dust and scratches filter (Filter->Noise->Dust & Scratches).

    The water stains will likely need something like the healing brush or the patch tool.

    A good forum for practicing and learning retouching is www.retouchpro.com

    Regards,
    Brad

    www.digismile.ca
  • Phil_LPhil_L Registered Users Posts: 106 Major grins
    edited March 31, 2007
    evoryware wrote:
    I just recently started trying my hand at this and it's not always easy. I'm using Elements 4.0 for this and was about to post two pics for critique. I got rid of the residual stuff and a slight sharpen and eye touchup on the girl, but I didn't change it to BW.

    restore2.bmp

    Nice work! Care to tell me what tools you used and how you did it?

    I used the healing brushand clone stamp but wasnt satisfied with the results.headscratch.gif
  • Phil_LPhil_L Registered Users Posts: 106 Major grins
    edited March 31, 2007
    digismile wrote:
    There are lots of techniques to use when restoring photos. First let me recommend some good reading: Restoration & Retouching (1st, 2nd, 3rd Editions) by Katrin Eismann. There are plenty of examples of working on old, extremely damaged photos.

    What are you using as your photo editor? A lot of times you will find that the damage very often appears more prominently in one of the 3 color channels. Since your are remaining monochromatic, you may be able to discard one of the channels and blend the remaining two.

    Assuming you have photoshop, the dust marks can be improved using the dust and scratches filter (Filter->Noise->Dust & Scratches).

    The water stains will likely need something like the healing brush or the patch tool.

    A good forum for practicing and learning retouching is www.retouchpro.com

    Regards,

    Thanks for the info!
    Katrin Eismann's book is on my buy list.

    I uppgraded recently from PSE3 to PS CS2 and have been working with Barry Hayne's et al's book "Photoshop Artistry".

    Pretty much a novice when it comes to PS.

    I have used the restoration method outlined in the book which basically involves scanning in RGB, increasing the density of the detail via a background copy with multiply as a blending mode. Adjust with opacity.
    Mask to apply to faces only.

    Levels adjustment for each of R,G & B moving the left and right sliders inwards untill clipping ocures and then backing off. This removes a lot of the colour cast.

    Inspect each of the R,G &B channels for detail. Choose one channel and then fiddle with the colour balance.
    Removes the rest of the colour cast.

    Used curves and masking to increase contrast on faces.

    Not really happy with the results even apart from the clean up problem.

    Probably need to practice more. :D
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