Re-touching old photos

[Resin42]

Hiya folks, haven't been on hear in ages and sadly I've not been finding much time to shoot of late for various reasons.

I have picked up a small family related project though. My mum's been going through my grandmother's old photos all of which are getting a bit tatty and asked my dad if he could scan them and save them online. He's kind of passed the buck onto me and I've decided to try and touch them up as far as possible. This being for my mum and my gran and the family as a whole I really want to make a job of it so I thought I'd ask your opinions and advice on my first effort before I plough into the other twenty odd.

I believe this is my grand parents wedding day sometime during world war two.

Original:

Edit:

There's obviously a lot of cloning and spot healing been done. Also contrast, brightness, noise removal and sharpening. I'm trying to preserve the character of the original but make something that I can share with the family and possibly print up for my gran's christmas.

Any thoughts and tips would be really appreciated, especially with what I may have done too much of.

Oh and my bad if this isn't the best place to post this.

 

[davebmck]

A little too bright and contrasty in my opinion. You might try to tone it down a little.

 

[TwoRails]

Nice job overall, and you can tell you spent a lot of time with it. I agree with the above, however, as it is a little to stark.

 

[deanimator]

Couple of tips you might like to try:
1) Don´t simply reduce the contrast...instead try just to pull the highlights back a tad
2) Warm it up very slightly...don´t go as far as sepia, but a hint of warmth will make it look more authentic
3) Burn in the edges slightly

 

[Resin42]

All duly noted and tried.

1) Highlights was a mixed bag and caused some patchiness (patchyness?) I've had to take the contrast back a touch and do some further re-touching and colour replacement.

2) Gave it just a hint of warmth

3) Wasn't digging the burnt edges so I blurred them slightly, I think this has given the desired effect.

Here it is.

Cheers for the help guys (especially deanimator). Any further thoughts anyone?

 

[deanimator]

Definitely looks better.

As for burning in the edges, I didn´t mean literally take a match to them... I was referring to the technique of making the edges a little darker...fading to normal a cm or so into the image. This usually helps gives such images a it of depth...hence a bit more life.

 

[davebmck]

Yes, much better.

 

[Resin42]

As for burning in the edges, I didn´t mean literally take a match to them

I spent an hour stabbing my screen with a lighter dammit!

I follow you now, I assumed you meant softening the edge as it looked a little harsh. Damn I'm outta practice.

Cheers once again folks.

 

[Ptyler22]

Hope you don't mind but I had a go at it to see what I could do. Just did some simple shadow/ Highlight tool adjustments, and then a little contrast added.

 

[Resin42]

Don't mind at all, there's food for thought there.

I think I may have done things a bit back to front here. I'm gonna go have another go.