Restoring Old Portrait

[yehaaa]

I am in the process of restoring old (1880-1920) family photos and have come across a problem I thought somebody could help me with hopefully.
As you will see in the image I have attached, there are areas along the top border and down the left near the chair legs which are "cloudy" and I don't know how to fix these.

Have fixed all the holes and torn bits, but am really stuck.

Hope I am in the correct section to get some feedback on what I am doing.

Thanks

[Alexandra]

Hi,

I think the correct section is Post Processing and Printing. As for the "cloudy" areas i see what you mean. With the chair legs one can only guess what exactly is the shape of the legs... Try cloning around the legs and maybe burning te legs a bit... but not sure it will work so dont take my word for it. You might get a bit more detail if you boost the contrast a little... Good luck!

[Benji]

The cloudyness is the silver coming to the top of the image. It was not washed long enough back when it was processed to remove all the silver. In Photoshop I would select the woman go to inverse then darken the background. To replace the missing leg I would clone the good leg then move it over to where the missing one should be then darken it. If the corners are still too light I would vignette them.

Benji

[edbayani]

first of all, go to levels and you will notice the black and white points are not in their right places of the histogram. adjust the points to give it a little snap.you can use the burn tool set to soft and 30%, shadows you have to brush or click on the silvery parts carefully to balance them,
as for the leg, i think it is really not there. what you can do is correct the shadow at the back part of the chair by getting some portions of the lighter floor and put it at the back. you can also select the front panel fo the leg, just the top decorative portion and put it in another layer, flip it horizontally and using free transform adjust the shape by changing the perspective and size and position it at the opposite corner. darken it till it blends with the dark side of the chair. flatten. attached thumbnails of what i did.

[edbayani]

i hope you don't mind, i did one in color. attached sample

[zona5101]

nice work edbayani.

[yehaaa]

Thanks so much for the tips, all of you - I will try them and post the result when I am done.
Edbayani, loved what you did with the colour, and also understand the leg bit. Hopefully I can do something half as good as you have.

Again, I appreciate the help - thanks! Andy

[edbayani]

you.re welcome, yehaaa. glad you liked the color.
thank you also, zona5101.
i just have sooo much time in my hands that is why i keep experimenting.
i am now enjoying coloring bw photos.