Badly cracked photo

[joecruz100]

I have a photo montage of five images on a single layer. It is over 50 years old and badly cracked. I've tried using the spot healing tool to repair the image but it leaves the images rather flat. It is also extremely tedious and time-consuming. Is there a way to heal the cracks globally as well as restore some of the colors? I'm new to PhotoShop CC having used it for only a month prior to that I was using PhotoShop elements for only about 3 months.

[davescm]

Good photo restoration is a slow process, not a one click wonder.

If you post the image at a reasonably high resolution, click on the insert image button at the top of the posting box,  we may be able to help you by advising an approach.

Dave

[joecruz100]

Thanks for the quick response. Here is the image. The spot damage is the easier part. Its just a bit tedious. Its color and tone that's been tricky

[joecruz100]

Thanks! Just signed up to retouchpro

[davescm]

The colours look so far gone there that you might need to resort to hand coloring.

In this very quick and rough example:

1. I used the camera raw filter to convert to black and white and introduce some contrast

2. I painted out a lot of the background with a gray color the same as the B&W grey conversion

3. I cloned and healed onto a new layer - a lot more would be needed on this but this was mainly to show the hand-colouring:

4. I picked up colour from a separate baby image and painted over the photo onto a layer set to color blending mode. It would have been better if I'd known the eye colour etc,

I hope that gets you started

Dave

[joecruz100]

Very helpful. I initially tried a paint over but the images just looked so flat. It looks like the curves option could address that. I also have to practice with the color blending. I was at the point of giving up but now I see whats possible thanks

[S_Gans]

Just an addition to the curves idea, also check out some of the blend modes in the Layers Menu (where it says Normal at the top of the layers menu). Color (near the bottom) may also let you use your colorization and combine it with the grayscale luminosity from below, to get you that depth.

[Trevor.Dennis]

There's no quick fix for damaged old photographs.  In fact fixing them them can be a skilled time consuming operation.

Check out Retouch Pro for specialist information on the subject

http://www.retouchpro.com/

[joecruz100]

Thanks! Just signed up

[barbara_a]

I would suggest the Content Aware Fill command rather than the healing tool. Make a selection around one of the spots with some of the surrounding pixels included.

Then Edit >Fill.

You might use the Camera Raw Filter to fix tone. If you want it to be non-destructive you could first make the layer a smart object layer (right click the layer or choose Filter > Convert for Smart Filters). Then Filter > Camera Raw.

With the White Balance tool in Camera Raw, click on something that is known to be neutral, like the diapers. That should remove the general color cast. Also in Camera Raw, increasing Clarity would help.

There are many ways to do things in Photoshop and other fixes you could do, depending on how much time you want to devote to it.

[joecruz100]

Thanks Barbara,

I'm relatively new at this and didn't think of the content fill approach or the camera raw for skin tone.I'll also try the "camera raw" approach.

Thanks to all. Glad I found this site!

[barbara_a]

You're welcome.

Although the healing tool and the Content Aware Fill command are based on the same technology, I've found that they are slightly different. You could try both and see which you like best for this particular photo.