Heavily Freckled Face.. 1895 Photo

[leapyear52]

Old photo, when zoomed in, has massive amt of freckled spots on face..what's the best restore-approach with PSE5 to get rid of freckles(hardly anywhere to clone from) and keep the face color/tone in tact and preserving the authenticity ?

[Rusty]

I may not have a clue, but you should post the picture so we can see what you are working with. Somebody will probably be able to help.

Rusty

[leapyear52]

Here is the image

[Wendy]

Hi ...

For something as specialist as this I would be inclined to ask over on the RetouchPRO site ...

Flora does some amazing work with this type of image ... it certainly won't be easy to do ..

Wendy

[mrod]

Additionally, if you're so inclined, this looks like a perfect candidate to send to Ben Willmore, who is a master Photoshop user & instructor. He has an area of his web site called Image Ambulance, in which he invites people to send him particularly problematic images and he figures out solutions on how to fix 'em.

This is not a service in which he gets an image, fixes it, and sends it back. So, it wouldn't be a solution to your problem. He uses them as a way to develop new techniques, tips, and tricks to then share with others via his web site, books, and seminars. I just attended one of his seminars yesterday, and let me tell you, the dude knows his stuff.

Anyway, his web site is www.digitalmastery.com (http://www.digitalmastery.com), and here is a link to the Image Ambulance (http://www.digitalmastery.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=23&Itemid=77) area.

Given the inspiration I got at the seminar yesterday, this would be a fun challenge to tackle (if time permitted!:eek:). I saw him do some pretty amazing things with some pretty bad, old photos.

Mike

[Daviskw]

Hi Leapyear

I agree with the others... If you want or need a great improvement you are going to need someone that can add back detail that is missing. The example you posted was very small but I believe there is damage that cannot be recovered and will need to be added.

With the low-resolution example you provided I blocked in some background for a start. I often use the healing brush, clone tool and smudging. Then I overlay a copy of the original and slowly reduce opacity until the pictures detail blends and looks close. Then start the process over again… Heal, clone, smudge… then overlay the original copy again.

This would be just a start and further refining will help... but it takes a lot of time and soon you would need to lighten and darken on layers at the pixel level.

Butch


http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1kd3RzxJmnO2WsBLGTyYXUGx6cfiNh0_thumb.jpg (http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1kd3RzxJmnO2WsBLGTyYXUGx6cfiNh0)