Old Faded Photo

[Jill]

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?pic=1LTzO8x0jMYbgzhswBgM83Zy1LxUT7

I have taken on the project of restoring some of our family photos WHILE I'm also learning PSE v3. Some of the photos I have are B & W's that have quite a bit of fading on them.

Now, I've tried several things to correct the problem but I'm not satisfied with the outcome.

I'm looking for some suggestions and would WELCOME any and all help!!!

The above link has one of my worst problem photos.

Thank you!!!

[Wendy]

Jill,

I have to admit that my first thought is that there not a lot of hope for it ... but I will play around and see if there is any information lurking in there.

When I started restoring old photographs I first took the easy images and worked on them ... that gave me a chance to build up knowledge of techniques and skills before I went on to the more complex ones. I think if I were you I would do the same thing and try to get some experience before attempting the hard ones :)

I'll let you know hor I go on with your image :)


Wendy

[Wendy]

Jill,

I have done some work on it ... but there is very little detail in the left hand side.

It would be possible to take detail from the right hand side and fill in the left hand side with it ... but you would also need to do a reconstuction job on the legs and the arm of the lady on the far left.

The steps I used were:

Levels adjustment on individual RGB
Duplicated the layer and set the blend mode to multiply then masked out the areas that had become too dark
Duplicated etc again ...
Duplicated etc again ....
Did a copy merged and desaturated it
Selected specific areas and did levels adjustments on them
Created a cleanup layer (50% gray set to screeen mode) for Dodge & Burn ... darken background and lighten other areas.
Created a clone layer to remove some of the dark marks

Hope this was some help :)

http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?pic=1h4mOHKVBbEbBAIS15wvFOEnZoe5zl

Wendy

[Jill]

Thanks, Wendy! I'll keep these instructions.

[Wendy]

Hi Jill,

Most of the techniques come from Photoshop Restoration and Retouching .... I'm sure that you will find the book really useful.

Its just a shame that the photograph is so damaged :(


Wendy