Help restoring a 145 year old photo

JasonM

JasonM

JasonM

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I'm looking for advice or even help on the following.

A friend has passed me a very old photo that dates to 1875, the task is to scan and then restore a digital copy of it. The problem is the photo is in really poor condition, parts of the photo are damaged by the sun and badly faded.

The problem I have is although i'm a software developer, graphics work like this is not my area. I've uploaded a scan of the photo and put a link below. One advantage I have is I own one of the professional Epson scanners, and the photo below I have already increased contrast to help reveal more of the background, I can of course rescan the image and upload without any correction.

The photo is below for anyone who wanted to look, and offer any advice. Many thanks Jason

https://photos.app.goo.gl/78JDJFGwD748Xpf4A
 
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jsmoke

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Well if pixels aren't there they aren't there. So you'd need to do some guessing and artistic work on the worst areas. For the rest a lot of painstaking clone stamp, some cut/paste and a few other tricks. It could take a while. No quick ways.
 

Mcnumpty2323

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JasonM said:
Hi, this should work

https://photos.app.goo.gl/78JDJFGwD748Xpf4A

EDIT, try above link
Click to expand...
Yeah that works
Photo shop isn't really my thing
But it can definitely be improved a bit
Get rid of the sepia to start with
Main problem I see is those 2 vertical areas especially the one on the right
Content aware repair or clone could be
Used on the building /roof
But where the details have been totally lost on the people may be another matter
Hopefully someone more skilled in
Photoshop than me can give you help
 

Donnie Fisher

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If you're expecting a restoration to reach something where there is no noise and grain, all the details back etc ... you're not going to get it. And even if you did, it just simply wouldn't look right. I went through a similar process with a few old photos of the farmhouse I live in. Long story short, the grain and noise adds to the final result looking better. Cant explain why, but they just seem to print out better and look better on the wall that way.

In terms of your photo, ditching the sepia goes a long way to removing the light faded section on the right. The 2 darker bands could be reduced a lot as well. You could also likely add some more detail through some smart use of dodge, burn and cloning tools.

So this was done by making it grayscale first, cloning sections of the roof against each other to even it out and remove the bands. Then some dodge and burn to reduce the banding across the team. Finally, a gradient map to give it back some colour afterwards. Its not perfect, but I was just playing about with the tools seeing what would and wouldn't work. It could be a lot better.

KEBASs3.jpg

The image you have uploaded isn't particularly large either. Can you upload a larger version which is unaltered?
 
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JasonM

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Hi Donnie,

Firstly it's very good of you to work on the photo, and you've already done quite a good job on the photo I uploaded, i'm really impressed to even see it like this. Some background on the photo, it's an old photo of Crewe Cricket Club, taken on front of the original cricket hut. I'm helping a friend who was a cricketer and his father was involved in the club.

Tonight I've re-scanned the image, I've actually scanned it 10 times, all with various levels on contract and colour curve settings. Everything has been scanned in 48 bit colour, 600dpi and stored as a bmp.

The first number is everything at default settings, then as the number increase I have put the levels higher to try and force out more detail. Images 002 to 010 where scanned exactly the same size, so the images will match pixel on pixel if images were layered on each other, for some reason 001 has been cut different.

The files are hosted on a server inside my house, I only have a connection with 10 Mbps upload, however they should still download.

http://crewealexandracricketclub.co.uk/images/cricket001.bmp
http://crewealexandracricketclub.co.uk/images/cricket002.bmp
http://crewealexandracricketclub.co.uk/images/cricket003.bmp
http://crewealexandracricketclub.co.uk/images/cricket004.bmp
http://crewealexandracricketclub.co.uk/images/cricket005.bmp
http://crewealexandracricketclub.co.uk/images/cricket006.bmp
http://crewealexandracricketclub.co.uk/images/cricket007.bmp
http://crewealexandracricketclub.co.uk/images/cricket008.bmp
http://crewealexandracricketclub.co.uk/images/cricket009.bmp
http://crewealexandracricketclub.co.uk/images/cricket010.bmp

Again very grateful of any help or work you can do on the photo. Many thanks Jason.
 
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JasonM

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Donnie Fisher said:
Jason,

I'll have a look at them and have a bash ... cant promise the world though !
Click to expand...

Hi Donnie, not expecting a miracle just very grateful for any improvement you can make!

I looked again today at the actual (hard copy) photo, it's so faded it's amazing that the scanner has revived what is has. The photo apparently was hanging on a wall and it's very faded by sun light, the image with 001 is close to how it looks in real life.

But again very appropriate of anything you can do to improve it, thank you.
 

Donnie Fisher

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Hadn't forgotten about this.

Here is a first attempt at tidying up . . . (lower res) . . . The reality is that the detail is not there in places, so its likely better left as is so to speak. I've removed the tiny white spots all over it, filled in the white patches and adjusted various levels, finishing it off with a little diffusing to give it bit of noisiness to it that an old grainy photo would have. If there are any other adjustments you would like me to do, then just say. ( such as overall colour etc )

7kP6u15.jpg

With the full res file here . . .

https://drive.google.com/file/d/13l-TbPDCiOP57eFSULpY7SG0N0Y-ZwCZ/view?usp=sharing
 
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JasonM

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Hi Donnie, I've only just seen your last post.

What you have done is amazing, i'm so grateful. You've done an incredible job recovering detail from the photo, as you say in places there was almost nothing there. For example the person on the right in the original photo there is almost nothing left it's faded that bad, it's truly amazing you got his face back to how it currently is. I've ever noticed you have managed to recover the numbers on the score board! You have done a really good job repairing the areas that where missing completely, the original photo had actual hole in it!

The thing that could possible be changed is perhaps change the tone, make it a little more black and white, so it's closer to the first you produced, but other than this it's amazing what you have done. I'm going to send a copy now to the person who's father was was involved in the Crewe Alexandra Cricket Club, I know he will be extremely pleased.

Just one thing, I can't download the full version on your link, i'm getting a network error, is it possible you could email this to [email protected] ?

Many thanks
Jason
 

JasonM

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Donnie,

thank you

EDIT. Also i've managed to download your high-resolution image from your google drive, the problem was DOS settings on my router that was blocking large downloads, so it's fine for you to upload the new image to your google docs again now, thanks Jason.
 
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