[WOODY]

CAN ANYONE HELP PLEASE, I HAVE A SEPIA PHOTO DATED 1910.
IT IS A PHOTO OF MY WIFE'S MOTHER AND HER PARENTS, UNFORTUNATELY MY WIFE'S MOTHER DIED SIX WEEKS AGO AGED 91.

WELL THIS PHOTO I WANT TO SCAN AND TRY TO REPAIR IN CS3. AS I WANT TO GIVE COPIES TO MY WIFE'S BROTHERS.

THE PROBLEM IS THERE IS A TEAR THROUGH IT, WHEN I SCAN IT OBVIOUSLY THE TEAR WILL STILL SHOW, WHAT WOULD BE THE BEST WAY,IF AT ALL TO TOUCH THIS TEAR IN AND GET THE RIGHT SEPIA TONES.

ANY HELP AND ADVICE PLEASE

[silkstone]

You'll have to do a lot of very careful cloning and healing. It is possible and very rewarding to bring new life back to an old, damaged photo like this, but it does take time.

Regarding the toning, it is quite likely that the photo has faded so the toning may be uneven. My suggestion would be to desaturate it, do all the editing and then apply a sepia tone to the final image.

[Dabhand16]

The beauty of digital is that you can try different methods from the original scan.

I'd go for cloning first. Use new layers as you go along, and if you make a total hash of it you won't loose much. Also do it in small steps as you can use the history palette to step back a few times. using this and layers will give you a big safety factor.

I'm sure there are other ways of doing it and I expect we'll see some other methods here soon enough.

[WOODY]

SILKSTONE AND DABHAND, THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP AND ADVICE.
AS YOU SAY IT IS GOING TO BE VERY TIME CONSUMING, BUT WORTHWHILE IN THE END.

IT IS A REALLY GREAT VICTORIAN STUDIO PHOTO, I AM LOOKING FORWARD TO DOING IT. MY DAUGHTER ONLY BROUGHT IT OVER THIS AFTERNOON, FIRST TIME WE HAVE SEEN IT, AS IT WAS IN A BOX WITH ALL MY WIFE'S MOTHER'S OLD PHOTOS.

HOPING TO FIND SOME MORE FROM THE SAME PERIOD. JUST HOPE I CAN MAKE A GOOD JOB OF IT.

[silkstone]

I restored some old photos of my Mum and Dad, taken in a studio in Blackpool in 1938 just before they were married. It took ages but was a labour of love. It's not just the damage you have to fix, but also the fading. If you'd like any help with this I'd be more than happy, although there are probably people here who are more competent.

[j sotelo]

Katrin Eismann has an excellent book called


Photoshop Restoring and Retouching
ISBN 0-321-31627-4

I have it and it teaches you everything you need to restore an image.
But if you need help maybe you can upload the pieces and see what we can come up with.

[Steffyboy]

Woody I have plenty of time on my hands at the moment scan it in hi res and send me the original I will have a play with it and send you the files back as a psd with all the layers intact if you want. Send it as a file not as a picture otherwise it might get resized for web
Stef

icango175mphflatout@hotmail.com
NOTE maximum filesize allowed is 10mb

[WOODY]

THANK YOU ALL, FOR YOUR OFFERS OF HELP. I WILL SCAN IT AND PUT IT ON HERE,TO SEE WHAT CAN BE DONE.
I NOTICED WHEN I TOOK IT OUT OF THE FRAME, THIS MORNING THAT SOMEONE HAS STUCK SELOTAPE ACROSS THE TEAR ON THE FRONT OF THE PHOTO. WILL THIS MAKE ANY DIFFERENCE TO CLONING IT?

SILKSTONE, YOU ARE MORE THAN WELCOME TO SEE WHAT YOU COULD DO WITH IT THANK YOU.

SOTELO, THAT SOUNDS LIKE A VERY USEFUL BOOK.I WILL HAVE A LOOK ON AMAZON TO SEE IF THEY DO IT. THANK YOU

STEFFYBOY, THANK YOU FOR YOUR OFFER, I WILL TRY AND FIGURE OUT HOW TO SEND IT TO YOU AS A FILE,NOT SURE HOW I DO THIS, AS NOT VERY GOOD WITH
COMPUTERS,
BUT WILL TRY AND FIGURE IT OUT. THANK YOU

[Rob Barron]

Woody, I do photo restoration as a professional service and will be delighted to do yours for you for free if you'd like me to. I would recommend that if you want me to, you send it to me as the orginal (use recorded delivery) as I can scan it in using the best quality settings and work on it that way. This makes a huge filesize so would be prohibitively large to put on here.

No pressure, just the offer is there if you would like to take advantage. If so, just send me a PM and I'll give you my address.

Cheers,
Rob