Clean up old photos

[jamesd]

Hi all,
I was wondering if someone new of a way to further clean up or enhance the attached image.
It is my Grandparents wedding photo which my Father asked if I could clean up.

I have mainly used the magic erase tool to remove spots. I have tried some live effects but lose some definition especially in the faces. It is the first time I have tried something like this, any advice would be much appreciated.

James

[Rik]

Hi James.

Maybe Xara is not the best tool for this but you'd be surprised what some of the Xperts can do with Xara.
It has photo tools and you might want to try them.

I just used your photo and decreased the brightness (-16), increased the contrast (7), increased the temperature (6). Just to show that you can make a difference.

This is the result I got and if you play about, you can see what looks good to you!

But, don't worry.
The Xperts will soon be here and give you some real tips.

[angelize]

Well I am certainly no expert, but I have done some photo clean up work with Xara.

I took your after shot and like Rik made some adjustments to the contrast and brightness. But I went a little further and made some adjustments with the Brightness and Levels dialogue by dragging the droppers at the bottom over the black white and grey areas in the photo, then I cloned the photo and applied a linear stained glass transparency to the clone. I clicked the transparency handle to add an extra stop I set this stop to 100% transparency and the two end stops at 0% transparency. I drug the transparency handle so the 100% transparency went through both faces. the final step was to adjust the sharpness/blur all the way to the left to blur the clone giving the photo the softness where you want it and leaving the faces sharp and clear.

[angelize]

I added an extra layer with an elliptical darken transparency to smooth out the faded area at the bottom of the man's slacks

I've attached my .xar file so you can pull it apart and learn from it.

[pauland]

Jamesd, I like your cleanup. One thing about old photos is that they have atmosphere and sometimes trying too hard to clean them up takes that away. I prefer your originals to any of the attempts at enhancement. Your mum looks happy and your dad very serious. I love the staging behind them. I would enjoy the image as per your minor amendments, or just the original.

Paul

[jamesd]

Thanks everyone for your advice
I agree with you Paul I did not want to take away from the original too much.
This is what I came up with using similar to Angelize, I copied the original then applied gaussian blur (smart) with a radius of 12 to the copy, then applied a fractal plasma stained glass transparency to the copy dragging the handle way out and rotating it until it looked right and overlaid it on the cleaned up photo. I also darkened the area of the trousers.

I think I am happy with the outcome of this one

[angelize]

I like your cleaned image James, I'm glad I was able to help I did a whole batch of old family photos once and one of them even dated back to the 1800s (as far as we could tell) It was in bad condition and needed very careful handling it was quite a challenge to clean and restore it without losing the ambiance of the old photo.

[jamesd]

Wow 1800s, this photo is not so old 1935. I would never have thought of overlaying a transparent copy with effects applied, to give a more subtle change rather than applying an effect directly to the image. Thank you for sharing your technique

[angelize]

You are very welcome, I'm glad I was able to help.