Old photo restoration

[ScubaDude]

Here's a photo I've been working on (every now and then) for the last several months. I'm still not happy with the skin tone, and I need to fix the creases in the lower left corner, but it's almost done.


before_after_color by turbodog2000, on Flickr

[dlambert]

Nice job - that's improved quite a bit.

[digirebelva]

Agreed, you have done a good job on the restoration.

[Matthias099]

+1

One can see how much work you put into this. Very well done.

[o0chad0o]

Even though you don't like the skin tone, and the crease in the bottom...it looks pretty damn good, IMO. Good work!

[NgaiHill]

Wow, thats very impressive. Even though you don't like the skin tones I think they are in keeping with the era of the photo.

[autofocus]

Nice restoration work on the Sgt Major...a relative of yours?

[SusanH1970]

Lovely work! Can you share your steps in what was involved so we can learn from it?

[ScubaDude]

Originally Posted by autofocus

Nice restoration work on the Sgt Major...a relative of yours?

He's my wife's father. He was killed in a car wreck a few days after this photo was taken, back in the mid 1960s. I had an 8x10 printed and framed after my first round of restoration (which didn't include the colorization), and when it's done I'm going to have another print made.

[ScubaDude]

Originally Posted by SusanH1970

Lovely work! Can you share your steps in what was involved so we can learn from it?

For the damage I used the clone and healing brush tools in CS5. It took about a month, working on it a few hours per day, to get it good enough to print the first time. Now I'm going back over it, getting smaller and smaller details with each pass.

For the colorization, I followed this tutorial. I found another tutorial that is more elaborate and allows for more than just filling areas with single colors, that looks like it will give better results. I'm at work and don't have the link, but I'll post it when I get home.