I recently restored a photo for a Christian Missionary in Guatemala. As one might imagine this photo, from his days in the Queens Army in Bahrain, circa 1950, was in very rough shape. I restored the photo by cloning some of the areas that had pealed away. There were several points along the edges that had evaporated with time and they were reconstructed with the use of the cloning tool, the air brush and by smudging. I then smoothed the effects of the years of exposure to the elements by setting the Opacity of the Smudge Tool to 65% and slowly smudged the rippled texture out of his unifrom and his skin.
Then I colorized his skin and uniform by selecting the area to be worked on and air brushed each area separately. By selecting an area with the point to point selection tool I eliminated the problem of bleed-over from the air brush. When applying the air brush effect I use an opacity of 20% and apply layers until the effect is pleasing to the eye.
The results can be measured by visiting my site at www.photorepaired.com where you will see the original as well as the finished product.
