Photo restoration help

[Doctor John from TOE]

Hello, my name is John Griffiths, I'm new here; I was a web developer back in the 1990's, I retired in 2000.

I recently volunteered to try to restore a photo for a guy I know in Spain, it is the only picture he has of his wife from those times and he washed it in his laundry. You can see that he tried some Draw retouching.

Turns out that the job is too tedious (pixel editing) for me and my 1998 copy of PSP. I could use some hints but is anybody equipped to do anything with the attached pic?

Thanks in advance for any help.

[CHoffman]

IMO, you'd have to recreate sections of the image that would be near impossible without other photos to work from. The cracking and spots aren't too tough, just tedious. The face and arm would need artistic talent that few people have. Sorry I don't have more to offer. I don't know how much it would help, but you can often remove surface textures by scanning in one orientation, flipping the original 180 degrees and scanning again. The two scans are combined and, if done properly, some of the surface texture will cancel out. Ctein's book on photo restoration might offer some tips- http://photo-repair.com/DigiRestBook.htm

[Jean-Luc]

As CHoffman says, other photos are needed to reconstruct the missing parts.
My attempt (but it takes many time to do it and I don't have that time):

Done with MakeOver tool (Strenght 100 and different sizes) + selection tool (eye) + clone tool

[Joelle]

I mainly used the Makeover Tool>Blemish Fixer
and the Smudge Brush.
Copied the left side of the photo, promoted to a new layer and
Ctr+M to reverse it, moved it to the right and pushed + pulled with the Warp Brush. Erased bits.
Copied her right arm and dit the same (promoted to new layer + revers, then more pushing and pulling with the Warp brush.
Also used the Adjust>Add/Remove Noise>Median Filter.


Hope it helps

Joëlle

[Jean-Luc]

Well done Joëlle !
Better than mine...

[Joelle]

Merci bien Jean-Luc!

[Kathy_9]

Nicely done Joëlle

[Joelle]

Thanks Kathy!

[Doctor John from TOE]

Thanks Joelle and others, I learned from your work and I really appreciate all your help. It has been almost 20 years since I did any Paintshop work, my skills are rusty to neverwas. It looks like your editions of PSP have stuff mine doesn't, I will practice.
--
Dr John Griffiths
Durango, Colorado
Ibidem ceruisa est in caelis

[Joelle]

I use PSP X9 and use it every day (I started with PSP 5 a zillion years ago)
Have fun experimenting.

Joëlle