Help With An Old Photo

[PKfanSteph]

Hello, everyone. I am new to this forum and a relatively inexperienced Photoshop user and could use some help with an old photo.

A friend of mine knew that I had a scanner and Photoshop (CS1 for MacOS X) and asked if I'd try restoring a an old photo of his. I scanned the 8x10 photo at 600 dpi, but now that I've got it opened up in Photoshop, I don't even know where to begin. There is discoloring of the entire photo, as well as additional reddening in one spot. Where do I start? It also needs sharpening, but how is that possible?

I've read plenty of tutorials on how to repair dents and such with the clone/stamp tool, but haven't found anything to help with the color problems. Any advice would be very appreciated. There's a thumbnail below and a zip file here (57Mb).



Sincerely,

[tscreative]

Well this is by no means perfect and still needs a ton of work, but it is an improvement. I just used the posted JPEG not the download.

I took the image and using Levels I adjusted the range by selecting the darkest areas and the lightest (basicly assuming one to be the black and the other to be the white value) with the eye dropper. Then I went to Image/Apply Image and used the original to boost the color and values by choosing Multiply blending mode. Next I used the Smart sharpening filter.

Granted this is a real down and dirty operation with none of the subtlies Photoshop is capable of, but now you can see what 5 minutes can do.

[Tips]

Okay, here'ya go ...

I took a few minutes and make a cursory pass to at least get you started.



Click: Old Photo brought back to life

Take two of these and call us in the morning