date stamp and more

[jmeyers]

Hi,

I've done a lot of work to this photo but have a couple of things to ask about.

Here's the original:



And my restoration thus far:



Regarding the date stamp at upper left. it appears to be 10/ ?? / '00. The day is probably 20, 28, or 29.  Since I can't be sure what it is, I feel that I should simply paint the whole thing out, rather than restore a guessed-at date. What's the OPR viewpoint here?

Second, on the boy's jersey above and below the letters "N" and "G", there are white flares or something. I believe that they were present in the original photo rather than damage after the fact. Should I leave it or remove?

Any other suggestions are welcome.

Thanks.
John

[bjtx]

John, regarding the date stamp - perhaps using 10  00 without the day would work - that is, if it looks ok & QA accepts it.
I did a screen shot of the original you posted & looked at cmyk, lab & rgb channels.  I wasn't able to decipher the day date in any.
FWIW - if I were part of the family, having the month & year dates would be helpful.  :)

[Mhayes]

Hi John,

I agree with Betty that having the month and year dated would be helpful. So much of what families have has been destroyed and having that information means a lot.

Margie

[jmeyers]

OK. Thank you for your advice. I fixed the date stamp to have only the month and year, and left a space where the day would be.

[Mhayes]

John, well done!

Margie

[btsmith12]

It's looking good, John!

I applied a histogram equalization to your image; doing that often makes the damaged areas really stand out and can be a good reference for knowing where to restore. Regarding the white areas above and below N and G: The white circle above N looks like damage. I'm not sure about the other white flare areas....I'd probably treat them as damage given the uniform appearance of the rest of the jersey, but it's a tough call.