An old photograph

I have an old photo of my great grandparents children that I wanted to see if I could improve on a bit. There are still a few flaws but I either don't have the skills...or patience...or both and am afraid the more I do, the worse it will look.

Comments are welcome. Funny thing is, on the small original below, the flaws aren't very apparent but it was a mess when viewing full sized. I wanted to keep an old photo look to the edit.

Ora is my grandmother. I believe she was about 4 years old when this photo was taken (about 1887).
Original:

I would drag it into photoshop blow it up 500% use the healing brush on the really bad spots just keep the brush size small and content aware on....I would deepen the black a hair also

I suppose that's the only way to remove all the spots...zoom in very close and just work a small area at a time. This is where the lack of patience comes into play.

I wanted to keep the contrast low but will bump the blacks a little. That won't affect contrast much. Thanks for the suggestion.

Nice edit. I've done a few of these too.

The only things that stand out to me that might need more work are the area by Helen's left cheek and something that looks like an artifact by Ora's right ear. Is that part of Phineas's pants?

Qbx wrote in post #16059831
Nice edit. I've done a few of these too.

The only things that stand out to me that might need more work are the area by Helen's left cheek and something that looks like an artifact by Ora's right ear. Is that part of Phineas's pants?

I think that's part of the chair Helen is sitting on.

The things I see that I would correct are -

Roy's chin
Artifact between Roy and Helen at shoulder area
Helen's cheek
James' right eye (to the left of his eye)
(Maybe) Ora's right shoulder
(Maybe) Ida's right cheek

The BG looks good. Any imperfections seem to blend in with the wall in my eyes.

Thank you both for the detailed comments and suggestions...very helpful to be sure.

I did blur the wall to help minimize problems there.

Just wondering why Phineas had such a close hair cut. It seems very unusual for that time period.

The person your're referring to is James, the oldest son. I have no idea why his hair was that short in the photo. That's just one of so many small mysteries I'll probably never know the answer to.