Dramatic Family Photo Restoration
This is another image I found online and worked with as an exercise. It was as bad as any photograph I’ve ever seen, with missing corners, tears in the surface from creases and folds, stains, scratches, and dust spots. Some of the faces were completely obscured, and took some doing to recreate. To further complicate matters, the exposure it self was less than ideal, and the scan included glare from an area where the photo was rolled. This would definitely be a test.
When I started on this photo, I began by desaturating the photo, so I would only have to deal with value, instead of color corrections. It’s pretty easy to add a sepia tone to a black and white image, but since some of the stains were different colors, I wanted to take that out of the equation.
I began with the easy stuff, using the healing brush to remove spots and minor scratches. Then I reconstructed the corners of the photograph. This gave me a chance to assess what else had to be done.
The next pass I began to use the clone/stamp to fill in missing areas, including the corners and the tear in the left side of the photo. Bit by bit I began to fill in the cracks, leaving only the most obliterated areas for the next pass. I also began to even out the area across “Grandma’s” lap where the original photo had rolled, removing the crack and the glare on either side.
In the third pass I had the most creative work. The boy’s face was just gone. So, knowing there would be a family resemblance, I cut and paste his brother’s face over the damaged area, and tweaked the placement and scale to make that fit. I think it worked out well. I had to then adjust the values on the face, paint in part of the ear, and then begin constructing the father’s mouth.
Finally, I added the sepia tone, adjusted the levels, contrast and sharpened the image to get to the final image. This also included some burning and dodging, and more minor corrections. In total this image took about 5 hours of work. I could probably take it much further, but since it’s just an exercise, this will do.
Got Photos?
I offer photo retouching, restoration and image manipulation services for an hourly fee. If you have an image that is precious to you that you would like to have restored, send me a scan of the image and I can quote you an estimate. If you have an idea for a photo montage, or some other idea involving manipulating photos, contact me, I’d love to hear about it.
Just remember that although I can do an awful lot to improve an existing photo, but there are limits. Looking through the images below you will be able to see just what can be done. If an image is missing complete sections, it may not be possible to restore that. Likewise, if an exposure is too light or too dark, there may simply not be enough information to perform the restoration.
You can use the form on this page to contact me.
Sage Arts Studio