Forums: Design:

Hi guys.

I'm attempting to fix an old photograph for a friend but I have very limited Photoshop skills. Basically I've just been rubber-stamping and healing for a few hours. I thought it would be a good idea to pause and get some feedback from you lot before I continue, potentially incorrectly.

I've put a rollover image on this webpage if you'd care to offer any advice on how I'm going, please.

I've done a bit at the top right and then started working from the left a little.

Thanks in advance for your comments. I'd like to do this as "professionally" as I can.

Cheers.

S>

EMCEE - you're needed hairy dood!

http://www.twelvestone.com/forum_thread/view/37885

When you are looking to recreate surfaces, you are better off trying to create whole are of that texture on a separate layer and mask it back, that way you cna get more even lighting and more consistent surface without clone repeats.

Also feel free to clean out textural areas that are unclear - like instead of getting the obvious clone repeat in the door reflection just get rid of the reflection altogether.

It's looking better.

I use NoiseWare a lot: imagenomic.com/nwsa.aspx

Watch out for creating new blotches when you take out the old. Man #2's jacket, for example, has lost it's original shape and shading where it's been repaired.

Also, I generally do things in a different order. I would extract a black and white version from the original scan, then fix it's basic contrast, etc., and *then* move on to repairing damage. In your photo, the blue channel shows more damage than the red and green, so I'd prolly extract the red channel to work with.

Work only in layers. Never touch the original.

Sometimes it's better to do a small re-crop than to waste a ton of time repairing backgrounds that no one cares about.

Let me know if you have any specific questions. Good luck, Sir! That one's a mess!

\\edit: I think that pure grayscales can look a little cold on these old photos, so I often add a tint back in at the end. PS's Warming Filter 81 or Sepia (as a Photo Filter adjustment layer at the top of the stack) work well.

So, I'd do this first:


extract red channel; adjust curves, reduce noise

//edit - I'd also straighten and crop at this point.

Then I'd start repairing it.

Ooh, good call on the channels - you'e a sly one, Candybeard.

Blue channel generally sucks on these scans, and the ink fades at different rates in different spectra, so it's always good to check and see what's up.

Thanks for the advice guys. I'm glad I asked. I'll go back to the start and try again.

Two questions, pease.

1) Ari, you mention creating the area and masking it back in rather than cloning. Do you know of any good tutorials that show this technique? Or are you willing to give concise instruction here? When I googled for "how to fix old photos", everything just seemed to say clone and heal. I guess I got the beginner's sites! Obviously I want to develop my skills on this whilst also doing a pro-looking job.

2) Emcee, I'm not sure what "extract the red-channel" means. I get an idea but in the context of Photoshop I'm too unfamiliar with what you are suggesting. Could you please elaborate. Apologies if this is something I should already know.

Thanks again for the advice guys.

S>

looks like you are in good hands for now...

Layers!

Your goal is to recreate the surface texture as much as possible without obvious tiling artifacts. Using the lasso tool, select out as many areas as you can with the same texture and copy to a new layer, then on that layer use the clone tool as randomly as possible to creat an all-over pattern. use a lot of short click/resample click/resample moves with a hard-edge brush then use the heal tool to clean up any edges. If you don't use a hard brush your textures get really blurry looking.

Once you're done you can create a new set from the layer, apply a new adjustment layer gradient to recreate light effects (switching layer modes and transparency for the best effect) ...Then simply make a set mask to bring in where you have crap areas you want to cover in the original layer.

The advantage to this technique is that you can create more convincing surfaces without accidentally cloning in surface details such as buttonholes or doorknobs or shadow/highlight areas.

I'll leave channels to emcee larkson.

I have a quick tutorial about using color channels, here. It talks about just what we're talking about here.

our friend MC is surely the man when it comes to P-shop help



a couple of my favorite resources:

retouchpro.com/ lots of tutorials and information

and here's a link to the first book I would recommend for anyone interested in retouching and restoration

Something weird about the retouchpro site, Walt - for some reason image links don't load in some of the tutorials...

Restoration of an old photo for example...

actually pretty much all the tutorials - retouchpro.com/tutorials/?m=browse&id=2

I tried IE & FF, same thing.

Thanks again, guys. That gives me plenty to be getting on with.

I've attempted the channel extraction and curves and got this:



Does that look about right?

The touchpro site says my histogram should have all the data centrally but mine looks like this:

Originally posted by: arigato
Something weird about the retouchpro site, Walt - for some reason image links don't load in some of the tutorials...

Restoration of an old photo for example...

actually pretty much all the tutorials - retouchpro.com/tutorials/?m=browse&id=2

I tried IE & FF, same thing.

interesting... sad too, if there are problems
the one you linked certainly had no content for me on my end...
but, in the case of most others, like these two [below] I do get content
retouchpro.com/tutorials/?m=show&id=298
retouchpro.com/tutorials/?m=show&id=245

Originally posted by: Stmoo
Does that look about right?

The touchpro site says my histogram should have all the data centrally but mine looks like this:

yes, your correction looks pretty good, if you are working with an Adjustment Layer, rather than making an overall Adjustment, you might be able to preserve some detail in the darkest suit on the guy second on the right... but, I am judging from my own monitor... judging faces between here and above, you are looking good

Sorry - keep forgetting to check in. Keeping your histogram 'in the middle' doesn't mean it's a bell curve, just that it doesn't run off either end.

Walt's right - the shadows in that guy's suit are plugged up pretty badly. Using Image | Adjust | Shadow/Highlight and adjusting the shadows by less that 10% will pull some more detail out of there, but it will also show off the horrible damage in the darks.

And Shadow/Highlight doesn't work as an adjustment layer. A nice curves adjustment to lighten the blacks will serve, as well, though it's trickier to tweak.

With this kind of damage, overall adjustments prolly won't get the job done; you'll have to create adjustment layers for individual areas - a guy's face, a guy's suit, etc. - and use the layer mask to control the effect.

Tell me about it, I spent my entire day close cutting fur trim with layer masks (too much detail & varied opacity for paths) against tonally matching backgrounds.Yeesh.

YUMMY!