So my MIL gave me an old photo of my lady & her brother when they were little. I scanned it, and then did a bit of work in PS, a bunch of spot healing brush to get rid of scratches & stains, then flattened the image via a smart object on which I then created a few layers for increasing contrast & density, lightening it, ran some filters to increase local contrast, exposure, play with shadows & highlights, blacks & whites, dehaze, color balance, etc.
This is where I'm at so far, and am more than happy to hear any advice/feedback y'all have. Did I push anything too far, not enough? Should I try anything else to improve the final result. The intention was to put this on a coffee mug for Christmas, but since I'm fixing up an old photo I figured I may as well get a new print for her as well. Thanks in advance for any feedback.
Here is the edited image as it is at the moment, after my first pass.
Here is the original image as scanned, cropped & resized for web (no output sharpening on this one, though I did do output sharpening on the edit).
One additional edit I am considering is putting a layer mask to only effect the ground, especially in the dark part of the ground to the left, and run a despeckle filter on that. I don't want to lose the sharpness in their faces, but that noise in the dark wall on the left is too much to clear up with just a spot healing brush.
EDIT: Well, I actually did the despeckle on the dark ground to the left of the chair already and updated the image on the server as I have a couple of friends looking at it too, with the same links.
