Workflow restoring old prints

[rother]

Hi
new to elements 4 and the forum, i am trying to restore some scanned images of old prints 1905 ish.
Is there a recommened order to do the restoration, to get better results. i have started by reparing the tears first, then getting rid of the speckles, then converted it to black and white via Scott Kelby's RGB method should i still keep the images RGB.
I have then adjust the levels then sharpened to finish.
The images also have a sepia sheen due to age should i get rid of this first and any suggestions how.

Many thanks

Rother

[Wendy]

Hi there Rother ...

... and welcome to the forum :)

Thats pretty much the way I do restoration but (just in case you don't already) I would suggest that you always clone the repairs onto a separate layer. Simply desaturating the image will remove the sepia tones and you can also do it using levels ... if you look in Wendy's Mini Tutorials (http://www.photoshopelementsuser.com/forum/showthread.php?t=3641) you will find one on the list called "Levels for Colour Correction".

Do let us know how you go on :)

Wendy

[rother]

Thanks Wendy for your quick response. i tried levels and the images still look a bit drab, i will have ago at desaturation see if that is any better.

Rother

[Wendy]

Hi Rother ...

I tend to use desaturate first then if it does look too flat try something else afterwards ..

Maybe if you post the image to Pixentral it may be easier to sort out :)

Wendy

[rother]

Wendy
i use esnips for data storage etc.
the file is here
http://esnips.com/web/openpics
if you click on the thumbnail it opens the browser view at original size and the usual right click save as.

Rother

[Daviskw]

Hello there

Myself I like the sepia tone in the picture so I would not desaturate. But as a workflow I like to correct as much of the tone before I do any other repair. You can see more that way. Then I repair spots, mold and such and the last is to replace missing parts of the picture. I just set the tone below… now I would repair the picture. Sometimes repairs show differently when setting contrast last.

Butch

http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/2451/numris96du.th.jpg (http://img355.imageshack.us/my.php?image=numris96du.jpg)

[Wendy]

Hi there ..

I started off by removing some of the distortion
Then used Levels to correct the overall tones
Next I duplicated the layer and set it to multiply (just to add weight to the image)
I then did a little selective use of levels in the light areas
Desaturated it
Then applied a gradient map to bring back some of the sepia ...

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1ZLrC5mP67X0gI5xMECNvDktISbzx0

Wendy

[rother]

WoW thanks Wendy
a few more questions, i have only been doing this for a week so some might seem stupid.
1. removing distortion do you mean the tears and speckles or is distortion of the whole image, if so what specifically did you do to remove it.
2. when you duplicated the layer to multiply did you do this once.
3. Do not understand how you do the selective use of levels in the light areas, similar the gradient map.

Can i check when you view the finished image on your monitor have you lost all the detail in the ceiling, mine has gone alltogether but i am not sure whether it is my monitor(lcd) calibration of the adjustments to the image.

Butch
many thanks i agree the sepia looks OK, i am trying to get the images back to how they originally looked so i am not sure if they would have had a sepia tone.

Many thanks
Rother

[Wendy]

Hi Rother ..

1. Distortion ... the image actually has some distortion from the camera so I used Image>Transform>Distort and made the lines of the pews across the image level ... and also I brought the top corners in very slightly.

2. I think that I just duplicated the layer once but I have flattened the image so I can't really say ... you will need to experiment with it.

3. For selective use of levels ... just draw a loose selection around the section that needs lightening (or darkening) then do Select>Feather (experiment with the size) this means you don't get a hard transition line. Then do a levels adjustment.

In fact I did a selection of the dark area of the ceiling and the two lower outside bottom areas of the pews and used levels to lighten that then did Select>Inverse and used the same selection to darken the rest of the image.

Your monitor may well not show detail in the ceiling .. I think that my monitor is a bit too light so I probably darkened it too much ... I really must calibrate my monitor :)

Gradient Map .. if you are not going to turn the image back to sepia then you don't need that ... but I did Layer>New Adjustment Layer and then created a gradient using the colour from the original image.

Hope this helps :)

Wendy

[rother]

Wendy
thanks again yes i am OK i hope will have another go tonight.

Rother

[Wendy]

hi Rother ...

Do let us know how you go on with it :)

Wendy

[Daviskw]

Wendy... or any other kind soul

I have been asked to colorize a group of black and white pictures. Some are rather complicated with shrubs and trees. I need a way other than paint and blendmodes. We have talked before about using a Gradient Map for adding color and I noticed above you used one to add sepia tone.

I decided to try myself and I am wondering if I am doing it correctly, maybe you can give me some advice.

The first image, labeled Before, I just did a quick levels correction but no other changes.

http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/1795/before9sr.th.jpg (http://img410.imageshack.us/my.php?image=before9sr.jpg)
Before

In the Desaturated version I removed the color.

http://img143.imageshack.us/img143/4299/desaturated3ig.th.jpg (http://img143.imageshack.us/my.php?image=desaturated3ig.jpg)
Desaturated

To add color back to the Desaturated image I did the following.

In the Before image…..which could be any sepia tone, I used a duplicated layer filled with 50 % gray, set to difference in the blendmode. Then a Threshold layer was used to find the medium color in the image. Once found I deleted the duplicate and threshold layers, sampled the color and saved its number for later use with the gradient map.

Then I sampled a darkest and lightest colors from the Before version.

I then opened the Desaturated version, opened a Gradient map adjustment layer. The dark and light colors were used from the Before version in the map. Then I clicked in the center of the map and added the medium color. So I had three colors on the map, a dark medium and light

The result is the After picture below. Is that something like the procedure you use?

http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/3635/after0jd.th.jpg (http://img410.imageshack.us/my.php?image=after0jd.jpg)
After

Butch