Any of you experts want to tackle this?

[rab]

I pretty new to this list and sincerely hope this isn't breaching list rules. Please ignore if it is.

My uncle seems to think I'm a bit of a photographer and presented me with the attached photo to tidy up. I didn't have the heart to say I only push the shutter release and have virtually no experience Photoshop etc! Anybody out there fancy trying to make this long departed Church of Scotland Minister look like something. They want to hang his picture in the church.

If anyone fancies a small project then email me and I can send the original. I'm sure I can come up with a suitable reward.

[Maureen Souza]

Here is a "quick fix".... I'm sure a little more time and effort could make it even better but I've got to go to work.......

Maureen

[tim]

The clone stamp in photoshop was made for this type of thing, Maureen did a good job :)

[RJSorensen]

Maureen . . . wow, you are good with that tool.

[PacAce]

I gave it a go as well. It could use a little more work but I'm pressed for time right now. :)

[RJSorensen]

Nice work PaceAce, you got skills . . .

[rfreschner]

I gave it a go as well. It could use a little more work but I'm pressed for time right now. :)

Very impressive PacAce! Care to give us beginners some tips?

[tim]

Wow, look at the before and after pics and that's just amazing! Well done pacace :)

[PacAce]

Very impressive PacAce! Care to give us beginners some tips?
Okay, but I should warn you that a little bit of drawing/painting skill is required to do any type of extensive retouching of a photo that has lost image data in parts of the picture. I did my retouching using Photoshop CS.

1. Start off by making a duplicate copy of the image.

2. Create a new layer set. Layer > New > Layer Set. This is so that all the layers you are going to be working with can be grouped together (you’ll see why later on).

3. Move the duplicate copy of the image into the new layer set. All new layers from this point on will be created in this layer set.

4. I always start my retouching by working on the most important part of the image first. In this case, that’s the face. Using the Healing tool, remove all spots and scratches from the face.

5. Create a new layer. Layer > New > Layer…

6. Using a brush of the appropriate size, start painting on the new layer to cover up the dark blemishes on the face. Use the eye dropper tool to select the appropriate color from a neighboring area. On this layer I painted over the blemish on the cheeks and the forehead.

7. I then created another layer to paint over blemishes on other parts of the face.

http://tanseikai.com/pacace/images/M1.jpg

8. Once I had the blemishes removed from the face, I moved on to the jacket. We’re not entirely done with the face yet so we’ll go back to it later.

9. Create another new layer. Then make a selection around the jacket, feathered to 2 pixels. This is not required but I like to do this so that I don’t have to worry about going outside the bounds of the jacket when I am painting it.

10. Paint over the jacket to remove all blemishes and spots. Use different shades of dark gray to paint in the details of the jacket like the wrinkles. If you temporarily set the opacity of the layer to 50%, you’ll be able to see the details of the jacket underneath through the layer. Don’t worry about painting over the buttons because we’re going to recreate that in the next step.

http://tanseikai.com/pacace/images/M2.jpg

11. When you’re done painting over the jacket, select the background layer and make selections around the buttons of the jacket. Feather the selection by 2 pixels.

12. Edit Copy the buttons. Then select the topmost layer and paste the buttons over this layer. (The background in the image below was lightened to make the buttons more obvious.)

http://tanseikai.com/pacace/images/M3.jpg

13. Using Image > Adjustments > Levels, adjust the tone of the buttons so that it closely matches the tone of the jacket layer.

14. Create another new layer. We are now going to work on the background. Make a selection around the Minister, feathered by 2 pixels. Invert the selection so that only the background is selected.

15. Select the Gradient Tool from the Tools pallete. Select the black as the foreground color and a light gray as the background color. Using the Radial Gradient pattern (selected from the menu bar) paint the background.

http://tanseikai.com/pacace/images/M4.jpg

16. We’re almost done. Select the Layer Set and make a duplicate of it. Layer > Duplicate Layer Set. This layer set should have a default name of “Set 1 Copy”.

17. Merge all the layers in “Set 1 Copy”. Layer > Merge Layer Set.

18. Now blur the merged layer. Filter > Blur > Gaussian Blur. Set the radius to 2 pixels.

http://tanseikai.com/pacace/images/M5.jpg

19. Adjust the opacity of the blurred layer for a more natural look of the skin. I set my opacity to 69%.

20. Select the Eraser tool and set the opacity of the Eraser to 35%. Erase blurred layer around the eyes, nose, mouth, hair, ears and the edge of the face. Erase these parts multiple times to bring out the details of these parts underneath this layer.

21. Now completely erase the areas that make up the jacket and the shirt. If all the layers are made invisible (by clicking on the eye icon of the layer) except the blurred layer, this is what this layer will look like:

http://tanseikai.com/pacace/images/M6.jpg

22. And finally, expand the canvas to add the white border to the restored picture.

http://tanseikai.com/pacace/images/M7.jpg

Hope you find this useful. :D

[TammieO]

Leo,

Thanks for the tutorial!

[mdm]

I think you found your expert!

[RJSorensen]

Yes thank you so much. I bow in your general direction.

[HJMinard]

Leo ... nice job and excellent tutorial ... thanks!

RJ ... nice Monty Python reference :)

[Flagpole]

G'day!

Thought I tackle this one as well :) Not after any rewards (I didn't even see that line until I finished my try). Thought I retain as much of the original feel as possible.

http://members.oztralia.com/~bfeldman/Testshots/Minister1.jpg

Won't list my steps as it was an involved process and I am still learning retouching. Suffice to say that most of my steps are from the Jack Davis and Ben Willmore book "How to WoW: Photoshop for Photography" and a few extrasthat came into my head as I was trying to get the right look. If there is enough interests I'll post a quick rundown.

Edit>Its not perfect but after about 3 hours I just couldn't wok on it any longer. A few minor blemishes still left but nothing a little healing won't fix.

Flagpole

[rfreschner]

Hope you find this useful. :D

Very much so! Thanks for the lesson!!

[appleoo]

Very Nice!

[PacAce]

G'day!

Thought I tackle this one as well :) Not after any rewards (I didn't even see that line until I finished my try). Thought I retain as much of the original feel as possible.

http://members.oztralia.com/~bfeldman/Testshots/Minister1.jpg

Won't list my steps as it was an involved process and I am still learning retouching. Suffice to say that most of my steps are from the Jack Davis and Ben Willmore book "How to WoW: Photoshop for Photography" and a few extrasthat came into my head as I was trying to get the right look. If there is enough interests I'll post a quick rundown.

Edit>Its not perfect but after about 3 hours I just couldn't wok on it any longer. A few minor blemishes still left but nothing a little healing won't fix.

Flagpole
Very nice, Flagpole. I really like it. You did a very good job of keeping the original look. :D

[Flagpole]

Thanks PacAce!

Just a couple of comments from me:

I would highly recommend the above mentioned book as a good source of some very practical advice on retouching old photos. It has 2 step-by-step tutorials that work you through some fairly interesting retouches. But in general the book is a great resource for anyone looking for a very good manual for enchancing photos in PS.

1) Rab if you are planning to try the retouch yourself then please scan the image in RGB and do not convert to grayscale. That gives the retoucher 3 channels to work with. It may still be hopeless task but some channels may just have enough details of a particular area. It also allows you to colorize the image if needed.

2) I did not realise that the coat has much more details until I oppened the shadows with Shadow&Highlight. If someone is trying to play with the image do this step first after duplicating the background. Play with the sliders until you find the settings which gives you best details.

3) About 50% of the work can be easily achieved by running Dust&Scratch filter. Lower your radius and threshold right down to 0. Then increase radius until you get most of the white specs to disappear. Create a mask to go with the layer and reveal any important details like hair, eyes, mouth, moustashe and etc. Then go in with fine brush and remove any small specs that showed up. This should give you a good base to work on for more detailed repairs.

4)If you have noise reduction software you can try playing around with it. I have Neat Image and you can reduce some of the damaged areas by playing around with various settings. Also try masking the edges to retain details, you should find Scottes tutorial around in this forum. His action won't work by default cause the image is not in RGB mode but you can convert it to RGB or create your own edge mask. This has the most benefit for the background.

5) From here it will be mainly manual labour. Use heal/clone tools and start removing large areas. Work on one are at a time and vary your source as much as possible. Start with the background and once repaired move on to next area. Work from large area to small area: background, coat, hair etc. Try different blend modes if you are unable to get the look you want. This is the most time consuming part of the process but you should slowly start seeing the image improve. Use short brush strokes and switch off aligned option for better results. The idea is to to be subtle as possible.

5) For symetrical areas you can cheat by copying part of the image onto a separate layer then flipping it horizontally and placing it where you want . Then create a mask and with soft brush start brushing the edges in to make it blend in. Change modes to see which gives you better result.

6) For complete destroyed areas try looking at your image gallery and see if you have a portrait in similar pose. Luckily I had one which was very convinient as I was able to borrow the ear out of it then transform it and xtract some details to include in final retouch. Don't worry about the fact that its borrowed from other person I doubt anyone would seriously remeber these details :) Plus no one has to know ;)

Once finished adjust your levels and contrast. If you have large damage areas around the edges consider using some vignetting to hide them leaving the centre area exposed.

Again most of the credit should go to Jack Davis & Ben Willmore with their good book. Also consider browsing http://www.retouchpro.com/ with its forums for some more help. Perhaps posting there would yield better results as there are much more experienced retouchers out there.

Regards,
Flagpole

[maderito]

This is great image to work on re-touching skills. I don't do it often and I don't have the patience to put in the time this one deserves. Here's my result which tried to preserve some feel of the original. I used layer masks to work on each image element separately (face, coat, background). Mostly I used the healing brush, dust/scratches filter, selective guassian blurs, and standard tonal adjustment methods and tools. I toned the final result.

[rab]

Well what can I say! I am utterly gobsmacked that so many of you have taken the time and trouble to retouch my damp old minister. The finished pictures are wonderful and I love how different they all look. I have printed them all on photo paper and they look amazing. Your all such talented and kind people. The tutorials will also be useful to many more people than just myself.

One kind gentleman has offered to make my minister a little project so when he's finished I will give my uncle the unenviable job of selecting one for the church.

Never in my wildest dreams did I expect such a great response. Thanks to each and every one of you - you know who you are!

A very humble
Rab
:) :) :) :) :) :)

[walkien]

just play with it, hope you don't mind.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v498/HenryW/Before%20and%20After/color.jpg

[tim]

Wow, how'd you add color to it?

[elkootcho]

ANyone looking for a GREAT retouching book I'd highly suggest Photoshop Restoration & Retouching (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0735713502/qid=1111813688/sr=8-1/ref=sr_8_xs_ap_i1_xgl14/002-4855524-4876866?v=glance&s=books&n=507846) by Katrin Eismann