What Would You Do (#46)

[EdithOSB]

I haven't (yet) tried my hand at this - it's going to be tough.

I do have old photos for our monastic community that would be useful if we could restore them.

I am wondering if anyone here has advice about the method of capturing the old photo for digital work.

• Some advise us to take a digital photo of the old images. They have various methods for keeping the photo flat and using lighting to make the resulting digital photo clear. It seems like a lot of work
• Others advise us to scan the old photos, but give us advice about settings on the scanners
• Some advise us to pay a lot of money for professional scanners from a local photography and publicity company

What do DPS readers think?

[djcassar]

Firstly it's not much point trying to edit a tiny jpg!? Frankly thats the same as pushing poo up-hill with a toothpick

You need to set your scanner to a high resolution and edit it straight from the scan.

The minute you reduce the size and save it as a jpg your drematically reducing your change to restore it.

[Mr.Intensity]

I failed to turn on alerts, I guess, so I thought nobody had a minute. I came across this post just roaming around here and...They Are Going To Cry! I would not believe that you guys put so much work into this for me and my sisters!

Things like this motivate me to: Find my niche, increase my intensity, to appreciate life and be aware that compassion should be first intention. a little more.
Thanx for another increment of aliveness
~James~

[Mr.Intensity]

Originally Posted by djcassar

Firstly it's not much point trying to edit a tiny jpg!? Frankly thats the same as pushing poo up-hill with a toothpick

You need to set your scanner to a high resolution and edit it straight from the scan.

The minute you reduce the size and save it as a jpg your drematically reducing your change to restore it.

I just learned a ton from what they did for me( wow, I got a lot to get busy with!) and another ton from what was pointed out in your quest; simply get as good a digital copy as you can first. I'll study and play with those techs. until I can repay someone with a beautiful restoration

[Mr.Intensity]

Originally Posted by Nicole

Look, I'm nearly on time for posting a WWYD

This week's picture is from Mr.Intensity, and is an old picture of his two oldest sisters. He said this... So I'm sure that any help that can be offered will be very useful.



Available slightly larger

I have to say I think it's great to have an old picture to work on because I know that there are plenty of people (me included) who get tasked to work on old family photos. So I'll be watching intently about fixes on this one.

Now, let's see how you would repair this!

Please note my thank you letter here.

[Mr.Intensity]

Originally Posted by Jamesc359

A simple restoration. This is far from perfect, but I feel I have fixed or at least minimized the most obnoxious flaws.

Please note my thanks in O>M>G! letter here. You guys are great!

[Mr.Intensity]

Originally Posted by Nicole

I think I like Jamesc359's better, but I had a try at it too (can't get better unless you try, right?) So I used some tips that I've seen elsewhere about cloning and healing things. Actually, almost all my fixes were just using the spot healing brush in different ways.



Like I said, I used the spot healing brush, but first I duplicated it to a new layer and ran the Dust & Noise filter at 1px to get rid of some of the major stuff. Then I set that to darken since most of the big scratches were light and by using this filter it softened things up quite a bit. Then I did a high pass filter for sharpening and set the opacity to about 60% to bring out some of the detail. Now the rest was done just using the spot healing brush set either to darken (on light areas), lighten (on dark areas), or normal. I learned that trick because it helps make sure that you only effect the area that you're meaning to. So yeah, lots of spot healing on separate layers.

I got out my windows' notepad and got every word pasted for study

[ditch_azeroth]

impressive work dj. restorations can be such an itch because usually, there is no automatic way of doing it.. it is done one spot healing brush, one colorized layer, one burn, sponge, or dodge stroke at a time.

[Mr.Intensity]

Originally Posted by Jamesc359

Thanks Nicole.

You know what I just realized? I completely forgot to tell you how I did it. D'oh!
Well here goes; I used variety of different soft edged (fuzzy) brushes in combination with The GIMP's clone tool to clone out as many of the scratches and spots as I reasonably could. I chose the soft edged (fuzzy) brushes because their edges tend to blend easier with the rest of the image.

That was it, nothing fancy at all, just lots and lots and lots of cloning.

Be aware of the little "Unfancy" things you do for people! you could bring a person to tears without meaning to thank you so much~James

[Mr.Intensity]

Originally Posted by jiminyClickit

Some extras even things out here, since the shadows are all sort of confusing. Not knowing for certain what was age, fading, or original location shadowing, I just smoothed as much as seemed appealing.

- Photo was rotated clockwise and "restored" to straighten and keep 100% of original.
- The lower part was selected and lightened, to eliminate the shadow.
- Girl on photo right was selected with part of lighter b/g and darkened to eliminate slight glow from exposure of white clothing.
- Shadows on white dress were lightened to a less unrealistic patchy look.
- Lots of cloning, some smudging, and noise added.
- Entire photo sharpened, softened to blend all work
- Desaturation, and a little contrast to get away from the green.

Larger: http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2387/...af03e8a0_b.jpg

I didn't get the notifications at the time of these works. So I need to let you know that I am more impressed and indebted than you can imagine! You are a magician with restoration. I learned so much that I might be in business I'm going to send the large one right off the kodac and have some printed- I got a big family.
Thanx again~James