Restoring badly faded film photos

[wildcat018]

Hi everyone, I am looking for some help on restoring some old photos. My mom had disc film recently developed that was from about 20 years ago. The film came out with some crazy hazes and fading that I can not seem to get rid of, particularly around the edges. I am using CS5 but I am very new to it. Any advice would be great!

 

[iDad]

Posting an example will help

 

[wildcat018]

Thank you. Here is an example.

 

[iDad]

I would open each photo in ps and try duplicating layer then on top layer I would switch layer modes to see what will help
this one as example looks like top layer in overlay mode may bring back some nice color to it.each image may need a different touch though

 

[RedneckR0nin]

Dads right. You might want to play with the dodge and burn tools as well. Always once you decide a layer has made it look better add another. This way you can always click the view on or off for each adjustment you make to the photo. I've had restore jobs where it took 30 layers of minor adjustments to make a 1974 grad photo come back to life(my moms not me by the way). The trick is patience with this and playing around with each layer adjustment and degrees of.

 

[$1r_M4x1mu$]

attempt to fix it, like iDad and RedneckR0nin said.

- some layer blendigs, overlay, soft light, screen
- dodge dark spots and burn lighter areas
- plus curves color balance and exposure helps a lot too



i know still a lot of work to do, but like a said just my noobish attempt.

 

[Steve]

This is what I came up with.
This is strictly color correction, no other editing.



I made some adjustments in ACR and then in PS.
I can give you the ARC adjustments and UL the PSD.
If all the images have the same problems and tint you should be able to drop them into the PSD and apply the adjustment layers to each new image.

The image posted here had one additional step outside of standard PS.
I ran a noise reduction filter Neat Image to reduce noise and sharpen.

 

[smalltrees]

the better approach will be to multiply layers to add back density and color...
the image posted is entirely too small, as shadow detail in the faces, just does not exist...
the small file does not allow any sharpening, to sharpen what detail is here...
my only option was to add just a touch of noise, for the illusion of sharpness...

viewers should note, that this image posted looks better on my calibrated monitor, than it does here on this website... it gained contrast here...
typical web viewing issues...

a better scan... would allow much better results...

 

[wildcat018]

Thank you all very much. This will be my project for the next few nights. I will post later and let you know how I did with your suggestions. Again, I appreciate it!