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dsbihill

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Hello all, I have an old damaged picture of my father that I would like to figure out how to restore. It was damaged by smoke in a fire many years ago. I have searched on smoke removal and similar things but I have not found anything that i could do to make an acceptable improvement. Attached is the picture I am trying to restore. If people could just give me an idea of the tools i need to use It would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
father.jpg
 

IamSam

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Hello and welcome to PSG.

Is this the original scanned image or has someone been trying to repair the photo?
 

dsbihill

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This is the original scan. I was considering trying some physical washing of the photo. Just don't want to damage it any more then it is.
 

ALB68

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This is the original scan. I was considering trying some physical washing of the photo. Just don't want to damage it any more then it is.
Hi dsbihill,
This one is not terribly difficult but it will require more than just a few strokes with some tools. It's going to take the whole arsenal of PS tools such as the clone brush, healing brushes, corrections for contrast and the such. What is your experience level with PS?
 

dsbihill

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Ok after hearing the difficulty of this I decided to cross my fingers and hope i didn't damage the photo by washing it. Attached is the washed photo using just a mild soap and water. I will try and play with some tools now to see if i can get this looking better.

scan0004.jpg
 

ALB68

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Ok after hearing the difficulty of this I decided to cross my fingers and hope i didn't damage the photo by washing it. Attached is the washed photo using just a mild soap and water. I will try and play with some tools now to see if i can get this looking better.

View attachment 51890
Wow! Now some easy work with PS now. That's great work!
 
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ALB68

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This is done by adjusting the individual channels using levels(your washed image). There are other ways too but if you work with what you did you can get something really nice.
father.PNG
 
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ALB68

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I will play around with the channels looks like that made a significant difference.

You still have some damage on the left side (facing) that needs repair. You can repair that using fill set as content aware or the clone stamp tool.
 

ALB68

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Here's the repair just using Content Aware Fill

View attachment 51926
Very nice. I assume that you selected various sections of the photo and applied the fill. What blending modes did you use with the fills? Did you start with the photo before the OP washed it or after?
 
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gedstar

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Hi Larry
I used the after washed version and applied a levels adjustment. For the left hand side damage I just made a selection with the rectangle tool and used content aware fill, I think I got lucky first time around as it done quite a good job although not 100%, so just made a selection in that area with the quick selection tool and reapplied content aware. No blending modes where used.
Think I just got lucky with this one :)
 

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