Enhance an old photo

[AndreFroes]

Hello all, I am ignorant in the photoshop topic and I am just trying to do something for my mother's birthday. She have a deceased brother and only a few pictures of him of when he was alive. I am going after several tutorials to try to make this photo better and colorize it but I am failing miserably.

Can someone assist me with this? I know very few things about photoshop, but I am good to follow instructions 😄

If any of you feel like doing it as well I wont mind as well, since this is a gift I just want to make it good for her. The image is attached here.

Any help will be appreciated.

Kind Regards

[mglush · Accepted solution]

Hi!

First, it's nice that you're doing this for your mom! Second, do you have the original photo? This scan is not the best to work with. There is no detail so all of the major features have lost definition and the image has a lot of grain. If you can rescan it, the process might be a little easier, but if not, then here are a few things you might try.

Open up Camera Raw from the Filter menu and adjust the exposure. You will see some definition of his head from the background. I tried some of the other filters but none of them did anything significant to change the graininess or the detail. I tried the Noise>Dust and Scratches to get rid of some of the grain, but it softened the image quite a bit. 

I then used the Stamp tool to get rid of some of the blotchiness  and the white area over his right shoulder.

In the image on the right, I added color using a blending mode. Create a new layer on top, and set the blending mode to Color. Then you can use a brush to fill the face with your skin color. I've attached both the black and white and the color images below so you can see the difference. I think the Black and White might look a little better.

Not having the detail in the photo makes it difficult to work with. If you do have the original and it shows more detail, I think you would be much happier. 

Let us know if you have any other questions.

Michelle

[AndreFroes]

Thank you very much for your reply Michelle!

Unfortunately I don't have the original, this was what I could rescue from some old files only. This is awesome that you managed to put some color in it already, this is fascinating. With this I am plenty sure that it will be an awesome gift already.

Thank you very much for your patience and for the work of art that you have done, this will, for sure, impact her and bring some good memories. I'll try to do some of what you mentioned as well, for the purpose of learning, but for sure it won't be as good as this one that you sent me.

You have my heartfelt thanks.
Have a wonderful day!

Kind Regards,

André Fróes

[mglush]

You're very welcome. I just sent you a message. Let me know--

Michelle

[AndreFroes]

Thank you very much, the color is so vivid and the definition in the picture is awesome!