Help Me Restore The Past

October 6, 2007 8:30 AM

How do I go about retouching this photo?

I've used Photoshop as an amateur for over a decade now, but I've never really gotten into the finer points of photo retouching.

For this particular photograph, I scanned it in at maximum resolution, and ran it through Auto Level, Auto Contrast and Auto Color. I'd saved it as a JPG, but this was problematic for a few reasons: 1) There was some severe horizontal banding across the image that was the result of the image's physical warping and my inability to flatten it any further than I already had, and 2) The Flickr uploader didn't believe me when I tried to tell it that it was a valid JPG.

I saved it as a PNG, and amazingly, most of the banding just went away. I was able to upload it to Flickr, but what you're seeing there is about 1/10th the total image size.

Now, I realize I could use the rubber stamp and try and brush out the individual imperfections, creases and tears, but what I'm really hoping for here is a suggestion regarding adjustments and filters that would bring some more life to the image. I don't know if I can trust the "Auto" adjustments to really do what they need to do.

(For the curious: That's my grandfather in the back, with 2 of his brothers and his sister. Based on his age in the photo, I'm guessing this was taken 1926-1927 in Superior, Wisconsin)

posted by thanotopsis to media & arts (15 comments total)

Paint Shop Pro has several "photo fix" options. But, instead of using filters and automatic adjustments, you will get better results if you zoom in on the picture and adjust it pixel by pixel. It is more time consuming this way, but the final result is as good as you can get.
posted by gnossos at 8:37 AM on October 6, 2007

...adjustments and filters that would bring some more life to the image.
What, exactly, do you mean by "bring more life"? Especially when dealing with antique images such as this, I would highly advise against doing anything that would "modernize" or artificially sharpen the image. In the end, the results would look fairly artificial and fake. The rule of thumb when retouching photos like this is to strive for results that are authentic to the original image. I know that can be frustrating to many in this age of crystal-clear digital sharpness.

You got the banding in the jpeg because a)jpeg is a lossy file format and b) you most likely saved it a lower-quality setting. The png looked better because it is a much higher-quality file format. And, as you discovered, results in larger files.

Gnossos is correct about the process of pixel-level editing being the best way to go, especially if you truly want to get the photo back to as original condition as possible. Even in this digital age, you sometimes have to invest time and effort in a lot of hand-work in order to get high-quality results. There's no magic "make the picture perfect" button.

I would suggest you convert the image to grayscale and then back to RGB for editing purposes. The original photo was b/w. All that sepia discoloring along the right side will only frustrate accurate editing.
posted by Thorzdad at 9:04 AM on October 6, 2007

Thorzdad, is on the money. I would recommend not trying to fix this too much. Remove the discoloration and maybe some of cracks and scratches. The subjects are still clear, all of the faces are unmarred, and it's a charming old photo that looks like an old photo, enjoy it for that.
posted by doctor_negative at 9:48 AM on October 6, 2007

As an aside: If you scanned it and saved it to JPG and PNG, without saving it as a lossless type first (TIF is always a nice option), I would recommend re-scanning, saving a master lossless file, and then retouching from there.

Having that lossless master will save you heartache later. Save another, retouched, lossless when you finish. Only save to lossy (JPG, PNG, etc) for display, not preservation.
posted by griffey at 9:52 AM on October 6, 2007

Second griffey about re-scanning a high-rez master. Personally, I would keep it as a native Photoshop file (if that's your software of choice)
posted by Thorzdad at 10:18 AM on October 6, 2007

Instead of using Auto Levels/Auto Color/etc, don't touch the Image > Adjustments menu at all. Instead, go to your layers palette, click on the half-and-half contrast circle icon, and see that man of the same adjustment options are available to you there. These will all be saved as layers above your image – non-destructive layers. They can be adjusted, turned on and off or deleted at any time, and they're non-destructive – you can take any of these changes back at any time, unless you merge the layers.
posted by avocet at 11:33 AM on October 6, 2007

I don't know if this is something that would interest you or not, but there are groups on flickr (since you already have the photo on flickr) that you can join and ask for suggestions.

I haven't done it before, but I've read some of the threads to learn new ways to correct some of the issues I've had especially with old photos I've scanned for various genealogy projects. The one I've thought was most helpful was Fix My Pic but there are other ones if you look for them.
posted by ugf at 11:38 AM on October 6, 2007

I would be VERY careful when converting this to grayscale. You can lose a significant amount of image information by doing that, because even though the photo looks B&W to begin with, things like the sepia wash, mold and any other damage that occurred to the image over the years will show up with different intensities in each of the different RGB color channels.

You want to inspect the image on a channel by channel basis before doing any retouching, because what may look awful in an RGB composite may actually be non-existent when broken down into individual RGB components.
posted by melorama at 12:28 PM on October 6, 2007

Worth1000.com could be your friend (previously)
posted by hmca at 1:00 PM on October 6, 2007

(Disclaimer: I am not a professional.)

I agree with the other posters: start off by working in something lossless, not JPG or PNG.

There's nothing really special about photo retouching in Photoshop - you just have to slowly and carefully fix up the bad spots.

To get rid of the unwanted colour, I'd use a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer to desaturate the image. (You can always add a bit of colour back with a Color Balance layer at the end.)

When retouching or editing images, I create a new layer every time I'm working on a change I'm not sure about. (You can click on Use All Layers to use the clone stamp or healing brush to make changes on a new layer.) This gives you the freedom to change your image without worrying about screwing anything up.
posted by davetill at 1:44 PM on October 6, 2007

You might want to check out Katrin Eismann's book "Photoshop Restoration and Retouching". It has a lot about doing fixes like this. Here is a page from her web site with restoration examples.
posted by DarkForest at 1:50 PM on October 6, 2007

Walgreen's and other places offer low-cost retouching services now, so that's an option, unless you really want the hands-on aspect.
posted by dhartung at 2:51 PM on October 6, 2007

This is definitely a time-consuming job ahead of you, if you actually want to restore the photograph to pristine conditions.

I'm going to have to agree with davetill and recommend touching it up bit by bit if you're that comfortable with Photoshop, and using several layers. Save different versions, if you need to.

As to what you want to start from, try putting a layer mask over the image that will look like it's grayscale, which will still allow you to undo that if you need to later on, rather than just converting to grayscale. Often, it's a better idea to select a monochrome version of the R, G or B layers than a straight grayscale, so you could try a layer mask of one of those layers, too.

Having done some photo cleanups in a Photoshop class, I feel your pain and wish you luck. :)
posted by juliebug at 6:15 PM on October 6, 2007

You have some highlights that have blown out so I would scan it again a little darker and then do an overlay to get back some of that detail, assuming it is on the original. Overall it is time-consuming job which is why pro retouching is costly. If you know your way around Photoshop extremely well it shouldn't be tough. BTW, pros don't use any Auto adjustments.
posted by JJ86 at 7:28 AM on October 7, 2007

Way late here, but for the sake of anyone searching the archives, I wanted to point out tha PNG is a lossless format. If you saved the scan directly to a PNG, you haven't lost any data.
posted by klausness at 6:03 AM on October 13, 2007