Seeking Advice and Help with an Old Photo

[Daniel Krueger]

I found this old, old photo of my great grandmother, grandmother, mom and me from 1972. I want to “restore” this somehow. I’m not sure what “restore” means at this point. 🤔

1. The scan is at 600px, so I think I have a good size file to work with.
2. There is a weird “waffle” pattern on the surface of the pictire. I believe it’s from the photo albumn it was in. (I found this loose in the box)
3. Focus isn’t great.
4. Color is weird.

Goal:
1. I believe a square is the best crop. Frames and mat are easy to find.
2. I have removed many of the dust and scratches.
3. “Restore” – whatever that means, maybe “enhance” subtly?

What I have tried so far
1. Working in PhotoShop and Lightroom to
a. Remove dust and scratches.
b. Work out the crop.
c. Play with other treatments: B&W, Sepia, etc.

I’ve also tried some online “free” tools and my latet version of Topaz. Nothng really looks “right”.
Hopefully someone here has taken on a project like this and can share some advice.

Thanks!

[Rob Wood (Admin)]

I have a similar photo from the 70s that I’m trying to restore and I’m having basically exactly the same issues. Any of the new AI stuff is especially weird because it reconstructs the faces and ways that simply are not accurate.

 

If you see what a professional restorer does, they quite often ask for other reference photos of the people in the image. They then restore based on the reference images and also take facial features from other people in other images in their libraries. For example, if a person has similar lips, they can literally borrow the lips from somebody else. These folks are not cheap though.

[logos189]

Did this on my Ipad.

[Frogdaily]

I had a go at enhancing your photo.  I used Photoshop on my iPad so I know you can get better results on your computer.

– took it into camera raw – did Noise reduction and Color noise reduction, slightly dehazed, added a little clarity and texture.
– then back in photoshop layers added an exposure adjustment to make it darker – blacked out the mask and then painted in white on the mask at low opacity where I wanted to darken the image  – example around the grandmother’s eyes to bring them out, painted around cheek bones and features like dodging and burning to give depth.

– did some level adjustments to bring lighting in balance

– did a color adjustment layer and vibrance adjustment

– Then ran it through Remini (AI app)
I then blended in the eyes at low opacity from the Remini image into my photoshop image to give the eyes a bit more life.

–

[Frogdaily]

I discovered a technique that sharpens blurred images and wanted to pass the information to you.

I brought the image into camera raw and did a noise reduction and slight dehaze.
Then opened in Photoshop

– duplicate the image layer twice

– group the two duplicate images

– invert the first duplicate image and then change blend mode on this image to vivid light (the image will turn gray)

– working with that same image layer – now go to Gaussian blur – move the slider up to reveal the image – the stronger you see the image the sharper it will be so don’t push it too far

– after you have set the Gaussian blur to where you want it change the Group blend mode to overlay

I did a very quick edit on your original photo on my iPad photoshop.  I pushed it a bit strong on purpose to show you the difference this technique will give you. Here is a before and after:

 

[logos189]

 

Without any other pictures to go by just wondering how close this is to the subjects? It looks pretty good on acouple of them.

 

[Patrick]

Simply had to post and just say , this is a really good go at it,  going from the start image as ref this is really well done imho , just wanted to say that 🙂

[logos189]

Thank you, Patrick.

[Patrick]

Most welcome , credit due 🙂

[Anne Hornsby]

Frogdaily’s instructions are really helpful.   I agree with Patrick about Logos’ rendition.  Coloring the background curtain green really helps emphasize the people, and the clarity of the faces is great.  After all, that’s the goal – to have clear face images to remember, eh?

[logos189]

Thank you Anne

[Daniel Krueger]

This is truly amazing. Thank you all. Your advice and work here will help make a wonderful Christmas gift for my mom (left) and me (the kid in the middle 😊)

[Frogdaily]

What a wonderful Christmas gift!  logos’ results are truly amazing.  Merry Christmas to you and your family

[logos189]

I’m so happy to hear that. It will make a wonderful gift.

[Author]

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