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Another Restoration from the Heart


TTQ B4U

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Done for a friend who knew this young lady back in the early 70's. This photo was a very old and cracked image found in a never before seen scrapbook. It's from 1973.

 

She was reported missing in 1992 and her family is now looking to solve that mystery and asked me to restore some images including this one.

 

I punched up the contrast a bit more than the original to better match the Fuji Frontier units the family is using at their local lab. I normally wouldn't but it keeps the output easy for them considering they are 2k miles away and doing this on their own.

 

http://www.pbase.com/timothylauro/image/141285529/original.jpg

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Nice restoration. Couple of comments, not trying to knock it down because I'm just learning, but my impression.

 

Seems like the older picture is a bit more in focus, or has more details, can really tell around the eyes and nose. Not sure if thats just a result of getting rid of the grain/texture?

 

Towards her right shoulder you were fixing the tear or something, and you basically extended her shoulder out. Looks like her right side she should be a linebacker, doesn't match her other shoulder.

 

minor things, but still a good restoration. :)

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Nice restoration. Couple of comments, not trying to knock it down because I'm just learning, but my impression.

 

Seems like the older picture is a bit more in focus, or has more details, can really tell around the eyes and nose. Not sure if thats just a result of getting rid of the grain/texture?

 

Towards her right shoulder you were fixing the tear or something, and you basically extended her shoulder out. Looks like her right side she should be a linebacker, doesn't match her other shoulder.

 

minor things, but still a good restoration. :)

 

Thanks for the input. Some of your observations are correct. Here are some of the reasons:

 

The original image was actually a 1.5" x1" very tiny photo. Not much at all to work with, thus part of the loss of apparent focus comes from the fact that it was scanned and blown up to a 16mp equivalent size. Second, it was a circa 1973 amateur shot that was not likely perfectly focused. Third, the paper it was printed on and the technology back then wouldn't come close to resolving details that we see in today's prints.

 

The size was changed for several reason including the need to print far larger than the original and also to better and more easily repair the damage.

 

The sharpness and detail will return when printed at 4x6 or 5x7 and even upwards to 8x10 in size. The software used to print handles that as part of my workflow I do not sharpen until the output phase since the way sharpenss is handled depends on the final output size and medium.

 

You are correct in that some of the speckles and apparant grain or noise contributes to the sense of sharpness. Even in noise reduction of digital prints, adding grain back provides the appearance of sharpness. Most NR Software Packages allow for this.

 

Lastly, yes, the repair did throw off her right shoulder a bit. Normally I would repair this a little differently, but the client is going to crop the image in such a way that the linebacker appearance won't be noticeable, thus we didn't worry about it. Good catch though.

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