Restoring the ancient!

[Caroline]

This photo of my Gt. Grandfather has to be about 100years old (my grandmother is in her mid 80's). It is the only photograph she has of her father I believe. I wanted to restore it, without loosing it's sense of age.

Original Scan.

I originally edited this a LONG time ago and wasn't very happy with the result. But I worked this new edit from the original re-colouring that I did way back then.

Inititial Recolouring

The editing was basically a whole load of cloning and healing, which I did using Gimp as I find the tools there better and more versatile than in PSE7. When all the 'snow' was removed I selected around the people and used high-pass sharpening lightly over them to pull them up a little
.

Final Result

My restoration is not perfect, but that's OK I think You can see his and his niece's features more clearly and that makes me happy!

You can see a side-by-side comparison here ; http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4142/...83e84fdf_b.jpg

[edbayani]

you did a good job in restoring an old photo but could stand some more 'patience' and remove the remaining blotches on the uniform and the background, specially around the shoulders of the man in uniform so the shoulders can be more defined.
have you tried your hand in coloring old photos? here;s an example.

[ahickman]

You have inspired me to dig out my old family photos and start working! Family history is very important to me, keep up the good work.