B&W Restoration

[dracula02]

I had a friend ask me what I could do with a photo of is dad from way back when and I thought that I'd see what I could do with it. I thought that I'd post my before and after her for any critiques and/or comments.

[Donb10]

Looks real good to me. I like it. I wish I knew how you did it..

[Ducky]

Very nice, did you offer him a bw version as well?

Look out kid, you'll put your eye out!

[dracula02]

I don't know if there's a correct/incorrect way of doing it, but I used Photoshop Elements 7 and layered several solid color layers, lowered the opacity to between 35% and 45% and erased the areas that I didn't want that specific color on the layer mask, then I copied the original scan and soft lighted it over all the layers, added a gradient to even out the lighting and toyed with the saturation to get the final version. 4-6 hours total time (including learning curve)

Yeah, this did remind me a bit of the Christmas Story... "Oh, Fudge... (But I didn't really say "fudge")" Did that too when I was younger... I've blocked out what happened after though.

[SaSha]

Very good work, an impressive outcome. Gratz!

[dracula02]

The real test will be if I can repeat this on a different photo.