Old photo, too low on contrast

[levb]

I'm working on this photo:



I like the old photo look and think it would be a good idea to keep some of the blemishes that are outside the actual portrait and also to preserve the yellowish tone. (Yes, I know that I need to desaturate it.) This is my current progress:



I want to increase the contrast, but then I get ugly gray patches where the speckles used to be.

What can I do?

[Tori803]

I think you'd get a better restoration by adding a black and white adjustment layer and then doing a Curves adjustment before going any further. You'd get a better idea of the contrast and blotchiness without the discoloration. Also, any spots in the background must be mold, not part of the original, so I would get rid of them. It is a wonderful picture, but I'd let QC decide whether to add sepia toning to it in case there are other photos for the family that have been done. Letting QC do it all at once would allow the photos of the same period to match in toning.

[levb]

Thanks, Tori!

I filled the face with coarse texture taken from elsewhere on the photo to conceal the blotchiness:



What do you think?

[videosean]

her left eye really jumps out at me... are you familiar with dodging and burning on a different layer set to soft light or overlay?  That's the only technique I've used here.  It's not perfect/done by any means but that left eye really should be looking in the same direction as the right eye.



PSD file if you want to see my layers and stuff.

[Hannie]

Love the dodge and Burn tip!


Hannie

[Mhayes]

Videosean,

I love this technique of burn and dodge too, but I do my layer a little different than you. I go up and choose new layer>mode either soft light or overlay> check the box that says fill with neutral color (50% gray). I then pick a soft brush and start with an opacity for the brush around 15-20 and work my way up or down as needed. Also handy to use short cut key of "X" to change foreground/background.

I take it that when you mention dodging and burning, you mean the same as above or are you saying with the Burn and Dodge tool?

I agree on the eye. Nice job.

Margie

[videosean]

I love this technique of burn and dodge too, but I do my layer a little different than you. I go up and choose new layer>mode either soft light or overlay> check the box that says fill with neutral color (50% gray). I then pick a soft brush and start with an opacity for the brush around 15-20 and work my way up or down as needed. Also handy to use short cut key of "X" to change foreground/background.

Yep that's pretty much exactly what i did except i prefer to have flow set very low and leave opacity at 100%.  It can be very tedious and time consuming work but when there aren't very many good pixels to clone from i dodge and burn on different layers like this.

[Hannie]

After I finish the dodge and burn (50% gray, soft light) layer I use Gaussian blur to make the layer look more natural.  It takes care of any harsh edges.

Hannie

[Blackadder]

There are so many ways to up the contrast in this picture. I recommend you use unsharp mask with a hiraloam move. High Radius (and I mean really high, like 100)  => low amount. That move isn't sharpening, but is a precise contrast upgrade :)  .  If you want to be even more subtle, do that move with an inverted mask of the merged layer. Then move the opacity slider to adjust to taste.

You can also duplicate the layer with overlay or soft light blend mode and use the same mask as above.
Saves a loooot of trouble.
To soften the face irregularities, try to duplicate the layer in a new layer, use multiply, then mask ik with a merged image and blur the mask (in the properties window).