Another Restoration Problem

[TonyW]

I've been trying to restore an old picture that has been varnished and the varnish is both discoloured and full of tiny cracks. Although I made a first attempt and the person I'm doing it for (it's her only early picture of her father) was quite pleased I'd like to try and do better. Problem is that whatever I do to get rid of the cracks also gets rid of lot of other detail.

Here's a detail from the original image that shows the problem. Does anyone have any suggestions/tricks that would smooth out the cracks while preserving the image detail. :confused:

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1Kw3tMPF991gKDAQOhbVVclHSWm3HZ_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1Kw3tMPF991gKDAQOhbVVclHSWm3HZ)

Tony

[Chuck S.]

Tony, if you're not trying to eliminate the cracking, the spot healing brush may do wonders.

Chuck

[TonyW]

Chuck - the spot healing brush does indeed work wonders on the spots but does nothing for the cracks unfortunately. I was hoping I could minimize the cracks before working on the spots but that's where I got stuck :)

Tony

[Wendy]

Hi Tony ...

Best place I know to ask about difficult ones like that is here:

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/

ask in the image help section ... Flora is excellent and she comes up superb ways of doing things :)

Wendy

[Juergen D]

Tony,
I tried to tone the crackling down with a duplicate layer set to Overlay (84% opacity). Then blurred that layer some (Gaussian 5.2).

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1K3z38IULsjDc5kQpP4iZmXutH63XI1_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1K3z38IULsjDc5kQpP4iZmXutH63XI1)

Juergen

[TonyW]

Wendy: Thanks for the suggestion - I'll try that.

Juergen: That looks much better - I did try something similar but it didn't look anything like as good as yours. I'll have to try again (I think I must have had too much Gaussian blur and didn't have the opacity turned down). Like the way yours brought out the teeth - my attempt certainly didn't.

Tony

[Juergen D]

Like the way yours brought out the teeth - my attempt certainly didn't.Tony
Tony,

I have to admit, I cheated with the teeth: that was some cloning, trying to cover up some of the rough spots.

Juergen

[Chuck S.]

Juergen, great technique!

Chuck

[Daviskw]

Hi Tony

You sure picked a hard one. Not sure I helped too much but I used the medium filter... then a hide all layer mask and painted back in with a brush set to darken.

I did not use any noise filtering ...which may help.

I used the medium filter but dust and scratches will work just as well... maybe even a gaussian blur on a screen layer then a hide all mask.

Butch

http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1M8fCZ1qXXRIoQ3OZgGGSnccUTSj4U1_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1M8fCZ1qXXRIoQ3OZgGGSnccUTSj4U1)

[Daviskw]

Good job Juergen...I did not see your post... the teeth give a whole different look.

Butch

[Juergen D]

Thanks Chuck and Butch.

Butch, you did a real good job with the lips. Is that all cloning or a combination of cloning and painting?

Juergen

[Daviskw]

Just a small amount of painting on a soft light mode with a gaussian blur... I also painted a little on the left eyelid and brow

Butch

[Daviskw]

Hi Wendy

Flora often makes most of us look like amateurs..…which I am..:p

Have you seen this link yet?

http://revision3.com/pixelperfect

Sure wish I had his setup.

Butch

[TonyW]

Thanks guys - great work and I've now got some good ideas to try out. It's going to look a lot better than my first attempt I know.

Butch: Thanks for that median filter tip - I'd tried dust and scratches but I think median works better. Looked it up in Katrin Eissman's Restoration book and she mentions it as being unique for smoothing textures while maintaining sharpness and edge transitions which does seem to be exactly what I need to do.

Tony

[Stringbean]

Hi Tony ...

Best place I know to ask about difficult ones like that is here:

http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/

ask in the image help section ... Flora is excellent and she comes up superb ways of doing things :)

Wendy

Thank you Wendy- that is a good site!

[msbrad]

Y'all just amaze me!
m