Need advice from you experts on damage repair

[Lb69]

I am working with this image and am hoping you guys and girls can show me how to repair a lot of this damage. It appears to me that this photo has damage to the emulsion. I am experienced with PS but this has me stumped. I can, of course repair it by cloning,healing, content aware to selections and the like. Trouble is that the photo stops looking like a photo and starts looking like a painting. Your help and advice is appreciated.  Larry
https://www.dropbox.com/s/suxeli8du95sr4y/Russo%20family%20restore.PNG?dl=0

[Mhayes]

Hi LB69, it would help if we could see your before/after on the forum rather than a link to DropBox. I would recommend getting a free account to either Photobucket, ImageShack, or Pisasa where you can post your work here. Drop Box is nice but more for sharing photos that where we need to have the photos posted into the forum. Also, I would make a special folder on your hard drive for say PhotoBucket and keep your photo post there. Do not delete from the folder as it will create a blank with no photo. Here is some more information on how to do it: http://www.operationphotorescue.org/forum/index.php/topic,2002.0.html

This is going to be a very difficult one to restore and take some time. The red channel has the most information, but the first thing you need to do is color correct. From there I would work the good areas. I would use a lot of layers and build up. The healing brush in small area, but be careful of the cloning tool if it shows cloning marks. It will be easier to help you when we can see the original and below your work in progress.

Look forward to seeing your progress.

Margie

[Lb69]

Thanks Margie.
I posted the link because I could not locate instructions on how to upload an image into the post. I think you just told me what I need to know on both accounts though. I am actually going to start over on this, so I'll post something when I get to a good point to do so.