Hi, Mike (Mike Morrell (NL) above).
It was a bit of a process, part clarification, part deduction.
The program I, and I think many others on here, use is Photoshop Elements.
I tried various combinations of the “enhancement tools” - “auto” tools such as “auto smart fix”, “auto smart tone”, “auto contrast” and “auto sharpen” plus the manual adjustment tools for lighting, contrast and sharpening. I tried the combinations with both a colour image and a black and white one. I could see some words better with some combinations, other words with others.
I came up with enough words that I could then make an educated guess as to what the others should be. I then went back through the tools to try to “see” what I had deduced.
In the end I could see all but three words and the year fairly clearly. “Departed” is still hard to see but in context it’s the only thing that fits. The first “life” still looks more like “died” to me but “life” makes more sense. “February” is also hard but you can see enough of it that it’s the only month that fits. I couldn’t see the year clearly so took to familysearch.org to find Richard Farmer Bray. After the event I decided that yes, it does look like 1836.
(And, no, I can’t see what it says down the bottom of the headstone. Bugger!)
I’m pretty much a novice myself to restorations - now addicted, I think - and although I was aware there was a tool to adjust perspective - as dafydd46 did - I didn’t know where to find it; it would probably have saved a bit of time.
I think the above process is quite akin to the one you go through when trying to tidy up a bad photograph. You first try to clarify parts of the image so that you can “see” it in your mind; sometimes you still can’t see what’s in that dark or destroyed corner so you make an educated guess.
Cheers, Peter.
