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Old western

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Quality time

Redrawing the curtains

[paulus]

Hi,

I'm wondering if anybody could give me some tips for these two images - they are a bit tricky!





I've almost bought every book amazon sell about photo restoration and am in the process of reading them.

The second image I've tried to suck as such detail as possible using Levels multiply, shadows/ highlights but not sure where to go next!

Any help would be great or even point me towards a book/chapter

Cheers
Paul

[glennab]

Paul, I wondered who grabbed these monsters.  I played with both of them and had no luck at all with the baby.  I think you have everything you're going to get without a lot of work and guessing.

The young man is a bit easier to see in the red channel, or - if you switch to CMYK - in the Cyan and Magenta.  At least there are fewer spots, so you can see his features better.  But I tried Calculations, using blending modes on the channel layer, and didn't get much from that to actually give you a better image to restore.  It just gives a guide to what he looks like.

Good luck, and know that while you're grappling with these two toughies, I have a couple that are nearly as bad.  Some comfort!  I look forward to seeing your progress, and I'll feel your pain.

GK

[Mhayes]

Hi Paul,

It would be better if you would only work on one photo at a time and especially when they are this difficult. Another thing that would help is to post the original and your work in progress. Both of these photos are not the originals and their color correction seems off. The first one is taking on a greenish cast that is not in the original. Take the original and do a simple Levels Adjustment where you pull in each of the sliders for each channel. Doing this will get you away from the green cast, but you will need to start at the beginning with the original, not the one below. You could start by repairing all of the spots or you could pick a good channel and do black and white and then colorize.

The number 2 photo of the baby is a B/W that has been discolored most likely from flood water. This should be color corrected to a B/W (keep in RGB). If you do an auto Curves, you will get some weird colors like what are showing below so best to stick with B/W.

There are some great books out there and they will really help. Its better to start at the beginning and work your way up to the really hard photos--both of these fit that category. It's great you want the challenge, but you can get really burned out taking on too much at one time--been there, done that!

The second image I've tried to suck as such detail as possible using Levels multiply, shadows/ highlights but not sure where to go next!

This is sort of like cooking, you can keep adding ingredients until what you are fixing becomes uneatable and you have to throw it out and start over. Same things goes here, great to try different fixes and if they are on separate layers you have a safety net. However, it you do too much that you can't undo you will end up in a mess.

These two photos need someone who is very comfortable with drawing and the use of the paintbrush to shade in areas that are missing and still make it look natural and not painted.

I would make a choice of which photo you want to work and if it gets to be too big a can of worms, pick another photo that is easier. It great you want a challenge, but one at a time is best!

Margie

Margie