Outta my league...

[Lynnya]

Wow Mike I really like your second Gimp with blur.. I think I'm going to start over again.. I don't have Gimp but can get it ... Great input thanks.

I'm hot happy with my WIP so far.. need to break and maybe start again... cooking dinner now... :cool:

[Hannie]

Love the Erode with Blur version too.  Great to have a Gimp user amongst us.  I downloaded a Dutch Gimp user manual some time ago (helpmij.nl) but never got around to  downloading the program. 

Lynn, it is starting to look really good!  Never thought it could be fixed.

:up2:

Hannie

[Mike Morrell]

I agree that it's starting to look much better than I would have thought possible. With so much pervasive damage, I doubt whether any OPR volunteer can do much more than create a 'reasonable approximation' of the original. Sharpness being the first casualty.
The only alternative is weeks of very detailed patching and cloning to replace each and every crack. And then the question is whether the end result would be any better than a filter + tidy-up. I, for one, would pass on the option of weeks of cloning/patching! ;)

Mike

[Lynnya]

I've downloaded gimp... took me a minute to figure it out.. it's not photoshop...

This is Mike's suggestion.. straight out of the box.. I did color correct it in ps earlier tho.. Just a Erode blur and then I ran it through my Imagonic software in ps and added some noise, blurred the noise a tad and then embossed the noise..I also created another layer with screen blend mode toned down some as it was very dark...

No damage done yet.. what do you think...I'm excited about this gimpy thingy...

[Shadow]

Love the new avatar. Looking good Lynn!

[Mhayes]

Amazing !

Margie

[Mike Morrell]

Looks good, Lynnya!

Very clever of you to think of using noise to 'diffuse' the blocks that come of out of the Erode filter.
This is a much cleaner photo to work on!

Mike

[Hannie]

Looks great!

Hannie

[Lynnya]

Thanks Hannie and all... now lets see if I can mess it up...

[Lynnya]

So gang.. what do you think of this version...

[Shadow]

Wonderful Lynn!  :up: :up: :up: 

[Lynnya]

Thanks Shadow.. hubby walks in and says... "it's blurred"... of course it's blurred says I... but it's blurred him says... sigh.. I added a little contrast.. any better? worse?

[Hannie]

Absolutely amazing Lynn!
The added contrast works well.
I can imagine that the owner is going to be really pleased.

One little jumped out at me and those are the pants of the guy on our right, it almost looks like he is wearing a skirt.  Maybe a little more shading or I don't know what.
I tried patching a little from the good areas, not sure if it makes a difference. Perhaps it looked better on my (misbehaving) monitor.   ;D

[Shadow]

Hmm...like the contrast. If you go way back to your first WIP you can see the space between the man on the lefts legs and maybe get some help with the man on the right's pants. Thank Hannie sure has the good eye  :D

[Mike Morrell]

I'm with Hannie that the result is absolutely amazing!

On the added contrast, I find the results vary slightly (in low single-figure percentages!) depending on the face:
- On the left man's face, the effect is relatively small. The positive effect is that his eyes, glasses and perhaps mouth look slightly sharper; on the downside there's a tonal difference (blocks) on his left check which becomes more visible with more contrast; I would mask this out (or blur the blocks more)
- The effect on his wife's (?) face is far greater. Her eyes, glasses, mouth and teeth become significantly sharper. The line under her chin and from her nose to both sides of her mouth too. I leave it to you but you might want to flatter her by slightly softening these 'lines'.
- The effect on the 2nd woman from the right is smaller. Positive is that her face is very slightly sharper. On the downside there's just one lighter 'block'on her left cheeck which becomes more visible. Like the man, I'd mask this out (or blur it more).
-The effect on the man on the right is (to me) the smallest.  I notice a difference but with little up-side or down-side.
- The strangest effect is on the little girl's face.  I don't see much of an up-side in terms of sharpening. The down-side is that her eyebrows seem to become less visible and the tonal differences on the left and right hand sides of her face/hair become more visible. So I would just mask her face out because there's only a down-side.

There are still a few faint lines/block visible on the furniture in the background, the womens's hair and the nr. 9 on the man's sweatshirt. You might want to consider blurring these 'within the edges'.

Pioneering work, Lynnya! " ... to boldly go where no one has gone before" (Star Trek) ;)

Mike