Photo Restoration

[Nedry..]

Hi,

I've been lurking for a while and have seen some members do a great job restoring old photos. My one is in fairly poor condition. It's the birth of a relative in 1957, my grandmother been the mother. The original picture is lost and this is actually a photocopy of it.
Can anyone work some magic? Thanks for you time.

[japeflakes]

Had a go but beyond me, sorry

[jmagarac]

I am sorry Nedry... I took a stab at a few things, but very little seems to have much of an improvement effect. Very hard with these old photocopies and newspaper originals. The more washed out and posterized they are - they harder to produce any substantial improvement restores. At least for me... anyway. I hope someone can help.

[McGroger]

Welcome to Rootchat, Nedry..

Echoing jamagarac’s comments, unfortunately with your poor old photocopy there is no depth to the image: the blacks are black, the whites white. There is no grey, so no third dimension.

I’ve tried to artificially put a bit of depth back into it by running the blacks into the whites with a “smudge” tool. The danger here is that the people may no longer look like themselves. Perhaps you have other photos of your grandmother from about the same time. If so, one of the restorers might be able to use it to produce a result that looks more like her.

Anyway, here’s my try.

Cheers,
Peter

[jmagarac]

Good points by Peter. I did something similar to what he referenced - but also wasn't very happy with the results. For most of the "same" reasons.