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Help Restoring Old Photo
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Feb 9, 2020 18:50:27   #
SX2002 Loc: Adelaide, South Australia
 
Hi Guys, a friend has given this pic to me to see if I can improve it at all. I managed to take some tears, scratches and other blemishes out but just can't get it any clearer..
Can anyone have a go and make it look better.
Thankyou,
Ron.


(Download)

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Feb 9, 2020 23:35:11   #
mwsilvers Loc: Central New Jersey
 
SX2002 wrote:
Hi Guys, a friend has given this pic to me to see if I can improve it at all. I managed to take some tears, scratches and other blemishes out but just can't get it any clearer..
Can anyone have a go and make it look better.
Thankyou.

Here is just a quick shot at it. I cleaned up some additional scratches across the faces, upped the contrast and sharpness, and added some noise reduction. Given more time and thought I believe I could continue to improve it. This might be a good subject for the Topaz Sharpener AI. You can download it for a free trial.


(Download)

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Feb 10, 2020 00:06:15   #
SX2002 Loc: Adelaide, South Australia
 
mwsilvers wrote:
Here is just a quick shot at it. I cleaned up some additional scratches across the faces, upped the contrast and sharpness, and added some noise reduction. Given more time and thought I believe I could continue to improve it. This might be a good subject for the Topaz Sharpener AI. You can download it for a free trial.


Thanks Mark...

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Feb 10, 2020 06:39:51   #
Hamltnblue Loc: Springfield PA
 
Ron
When working on a Jpg, the first thing you should do is convert it to a lossless filetype such as tiff. Every time the jpg is modified and saved the potential quality is diminished.

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Feb 10, 2020 11:28:02   #
minniev Loc: MIssissippi
 
SX2002 wrote:
Hi Guys, a friend has given this pic to me to see if I can improve it at all. I managed to take some tears, scratches and other blemishes out but just can't get it any clearer..
Can anyone have a go and make it look better.
Thankyou,
Ron.


You must be a mind-reader! Just last night, Linda and I were collaborating on an upcoming thread about repairing old photos. We will be starting it soon, so I hope you'll join in the mix. No expertise required, just an interest. You may get some more folks to help with this project too.

I tried my hand with your image this morning. My first move in Photoshop was to deal with the color cast. There was a lot of magenta coming from somewhere, and I eliminated that. Then I removed a few more black and white specks here and there, and mitigated a few more of the scratches on faces. I mitigated the dark shadow on the left most boy's face as best I could, and tried to get a little more contrast in the faces of the overbright folks, but it is of course limited what can be got, especially from a jpeg. I agree with the response about converting the original (or rescanning it) as a lossless TIFF to save as much detail as possible.

Next I took it into Silver Efex to give it a soft sepia tone which would be more in keeping with the time of the image than the magenta. I wonder if the original sepia is what gave rise to the stronger magenta it has now. I also applied a thin edge effect that I like to use with my own old images if they don't already have one.

Thanks for sharing this interesting project with us here!


(Download)

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Feb 10, 2020 12:37:07   #
R.G. Loc: Scotland
 
You mentioned getting it clearer so I concentrated on that. Unfortunately there's so much noise it's impossible to add any sort of clarity without aggravating the noise. It then becomes a juggling act trying to balance the clarity (enhancement of detail) and the loss of detail when the noise is mitigated.

I hope you weren't too fond of the original tint. I removed that and used split toning to add a bit of colour contrast to add to the vividness.

Anyway, this is my effort which has some marginal improvements at best.
.


(Download)

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Feb 10, 2020 15:56:52   #
SX2002 Loc: Adelaide, South Australia
 
minniev wrote:
You must be a mind-reader! Just last night, Linda and I were collaborating on an upcoming thread about repairing old photos. We will be starting it soon, so I hope you'll join in the mix. No expertise required, just an interest. You may get some more folks to help with this project too.

I tried my hand with your image this morning. My first move in Photoshop was to deal with the color cast. There was a lot of magenta coming from somewhere, and I eliminated that. Then I removed a few more black and white specks here and there, and mitigated a few more of the scratches on faces. I mitigated the dark shadow on the left most boy's face as best I could, and tried to get a little more contrast in the faces of the overbright folks, but it is of course limited what can be got, especially from a jpeg. I agree with the response about converting the original (or rescanning it) as a lossless TIFF to save as much detail as possible.

Next I took it into Silver Efex to give it a soft sepia tone which would be more in keeping with the time of the image than the magenta. I wonder if the original sepia is what gave rise to the stronger magenta it has now. I also applied a thin edge effect that I like to use with my own old images if they don't already have one.

Thanks for sharing this interesting project with us here!
You must be a mind-reader! Just last night, Linda ... (show quote)


Thank yoiu Minniev, it's a really bad photo that I scanned so I had no control over the type of image...you did well..

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Feb 10, 2020 15:59:31   #
SX2002 Loc: Adelaide, South Australia
 
R.G. wrote:
You mentioned getting it clearer so I concentrated on that. Unfortunately there's so much noise it's impossible to add any sort of clarity without aggravating the noise. It then becomes a juggling act trying to balance the clarity (enhancement of detail) and the loss of detail when the noise is mitigated.

I hope you weren't too fond of the original tint. I removed that and used split toning to add a bit of colour contrast to add to the vividness.

Anyway, this is my effort which has some marginal improvements at best.
.
You mentioned getting it clearer so I concentrated... (show quote)


Thank you RG, any improvement over the original is good and you have made some improvements for sure...it was an awful photo in the first place..

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Feb 10, 2020 16:24:08   #
DirtFarmer Loc: Escaped from the NYC area, back to MA
 
5 minute shot with PS.
Changed to B/W and pushed the black and white levels a bit.
A bit of gaussian blur to mitigate the noise on the face of the guy in the back left.
Selected some of the faces and lightened them.


(Download)

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Feb 10, 2020 16:37:13   #
minniev Loc: MIssissippi
 
SX2002 wrote:
Thank yoiu Minniev, it's a really bad photo that I scanned so I had no control over the type of image...you did well..


Understood. I work with these kinds of images at home a lot - family stuff from long ago. One of the things I've decided to do with my edits is to not try to regain detail. I end up clarifying or sharpening noise much of the time. Many of these old photos were out of focus when they were taken, and many have been poorly managed in whatever darkroom they were once in. And many have had damage in storage over the years.

So often the best we can do is raise the shadows just a bit, reduce the noise, remove the artifacts and flaws where possible, and return it to as close as possible to what it looked like on its best day. Often that is not so great. Sometimes we'll run across some that a relative in long ago times took or had taken with a good camera for the day. Those are easier to work with.

You've done well with it, I am sure your friend will be pleased.

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Feb 10, 2020 17:41:16   #
jerrylh Loc: Texas
 
I worked on an old photo somewhat like this, spending about 30 hours on it. I wanted to see the faces better and had many faces to redo. I only worked on this for about 15 minutes. I could have worked longer, starting over, but this improved the faces.





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Feb 10, 2020 17:44:29   #
SX2002 Loc: Adelaide, South Australia
 
jerrylh wrote:
I worked on an old photo somewhat like this, spending about 30 hours on it. I wanted to see the faces better and had many faces to redo. I only worked on this for about 15 minutes. I could have worked longer, starting over, but this improved the faces.


Thank you Jerry, well done but can you resend and click "store original" so I can see them in the original size..?
Cheers,
Ron.

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Feb 10, 2020 22:01:45   #
jerrylh Loc: Texas
 
Done again so you can see the original
Jerry

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Feb 11, 2020 11:05:10   #
R.G. Loc: Scotland
 
minniev wrote:
....One of the things I've decided to do with my edits is to not try to regain detail. I end up clarifying or sharpening noise much of the time....


My edit is proof that your approach makes sense. Apart from achieving little improvement, my edit doesn't have the pleasantness of your edit.

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Feb 11, 2020 16:28:50   #
SX2002 Loc: Adelaide, South Australia
 
jerrylh wrote:
Done again so you can see the original
Jerry


No Pics Jerry...??

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