Outta my league...

[Lynnya]

What was I thinking... getting too uppity here... this one may be out of my skill zone..  :crazy:  I must enjoy suffering is all I can say.. gonna need some serious help on this one me thinks... That little girl is looking at me saying "so you're gonna fix this mess?? Good luck!" she's laughing at me...

 

[Mhayes]

Lynnya,

Mine too. I have kind of a lazy solution and QC will most likely shoot me  :'(. Wonder after correcting the wallpaper with the ink streaks, you could duplicate the later and go up to filter and chose Gaussian Blur and have it around 2.3. It is going to make the face out of focus, and perhaps a layer mask to reveal and then restore those?



Margie

[Lynnya]

Thanks Margie.. I'm actually sorta working along those lines.. but don't tell QC please...I'll be gettin the boot... :mad:

[Bambi]

Surface Blur leaves the edges more intact. I wondered who would try restoring these pictures—and how they would even begin. Watching with great interest and admiration.

[Mhayes]

Yes, I kind of forgot about Surface Blur, but remember than Dan Margulis in his book on LAB in Photoshop mentioned using it and there was quite a bit to it--whether in LAB or working in the channels in sRGB. It was more than just a click of the button. Since it has been so long I really can't explain how he went about it, but when I have the time will read up.

I tried using the Surface Blur on a duplicate layer and could not get good results, you might. I think this would work great on some, but this one where the whole photo is like mosaic tiles, not so much.

Margie

[Hannie]

Lynn, what were you thinking, I would not come near this one with a ten foot pole! 

Margie's Gaussian blur looks pretty good to me, tried a few filters myself but all came out worse...

Hannie

[Jonas.Wendorf]

My usual approach for this kind of damage is to try to fill in the gaps while avoiding the existing details.
My attempt would be to create a duplicate layer, apply the Filter–Other–Minimum filter (radius 1 seems to work okay), apply a bit of Filter–Blur–Gaussian Blur (slightly higher radius, 2 in my case) and set the layer to "Darken" mode.
Then create a stamp of all visible layers by holding the [Alt]-key and selecting Layer–Merge visible, deactivate the filtered layer and set the merged layer's mode to "Difference".
Now the blue channel will have mostly white where the cracks were and black in the other areas, so I'd copy it and use it as a layer mask for the filtered layer.
This layer mask can then be enhanced with curves to remove more cracks or let more details come through by moving the black and white points (I went for 20 white and 65 black).
If you used smart filters, you can also try deactivating the Gaussian blur after creating the layer mask which might help to bring even more details back.

Here's a sample of this technique: (and the PSD file and an action to replicate it because I'm not sure if my explanations were understandable at all :): https://www.dropbox.com/s/gew036l5bqnhgre/Cracks.zip?dl=1)

Edit: Sorry if the download doesn't work yet, I'm uploading to Dropbox and it takes a while. In the meantime use this link instead: https://www.sendspace.com/file/ck3735

[Lynnya]

Thanks all and Thanks Jonas.. sounds very interesting.. I couldn't access dropbox for some reason.. and yes I would be interested in an action.. I'm going to try and follow what you've described..

[Jonas.Wendorf]

The link should work in a short while, but in the meantime I've also uploaded the PSD and an action to reproduce it here: https://www.sendspace.com/file/ck3735

[seelcraft]

I'm working on one of those, too. I've found that {duping the pic, setting to 'darker color' and nudging pixel by pixel in the direction perpendicular to the major crack direction until the cracks just disappear} helps a lot!

[Hannie]

What a great result Jonas!  I downloaded your files, thanks so much.
I have never used this minimum filter before, it works very well for this.
Learn something new every day here.   :loveit:

Doug, I have not tried your tip yet but I will later, sure makes a lot of sense for this kind of damage.

Hannie

[Mhayes]

Thanks so much Jonas, I have bookmarked this page and will also print to keep for future reference. Doug, thanks for your tip and reminds me of what Katrin Eismann had in her book. A very interesting thread and the kind of photo that a real test of skills.

Margie

[Lynnya]

Thanks Jonas and Steelcraft... ya know? I did try the nudging thingy but I forgot to "darken" the layer below.. duh.. I might have done a whole lot of work for nuttin... :cool:

[Shadow]

Lynn, thanks for posting this challenge! Lots of great tips for all of us. Eager to see your WIPs. Good luck.  :)

[Mike Morrell]

Jonas's tip looks really interesting! I'll give it a try too!

I had a play around with this photo and these are a couple of alternatives to just 'blurring' or 'painting over the cracks' in Photoshop. They don't do the whole job but they might take you a step in the right direction.

1. I hardly ever use GIMP and I only have it because it has some different filters to Photoshop (and it's free!). The GIMP 'Erode' filter seems to work quite well in reducing the cracks while maintaining some detail (as small blocks of color) instead of just blurring everything. See the examples below.

2. Most noise reduction software doesn't make much impact on this kind of crack patterns. The Photoshop plugin 'Neat Image' does a better job than most. Largely because - although it creates an automatic 'noise profile' - users can customize the profile and how it's applied to a high degree. So you can create a 'noise profile' that targets the level of detail at which the cracks are at while leaving larger and smaller details (relatively) unaffected, or that targets specific LAB channels more than others. The 'Demo version' is free for personal use and the only limitation seems to be 8 bits/channels (which the OPR jpgs are anyway). The licensed version (16 and 24 bits/channel) is $40. There's a good video on YouTube that shows how to use Neat Image: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OslEdNXoDUU. See examples below.

GIMP 'Erode Filter' (without additional blurring)


GIMP 'Erode Filter' with some additional blurring in Photoshop (Faces)


Neat Image (without additional blurring)


Neat Image with some additional blurring in Photoshop (Faces)


Hope this adds some additional arrows to your quiver!

One more thought: perhaps adding in a High Pass Filter layer (with all the cracks grayed out) would sharpen up whatever 'crack removal' steps you take.

Mike