After their mom passed away this last year, my friend has taken on the task of scanning all the old photo albums so each of the three brothers can have a digital copy of the pictures of them when they were growing up. As with all old photos, there are some that have not fared well the ravages of time. Yesterday he sent me this, apparently the only copy of his mom on her wedding day, looking radiant in her gown. As you can see from the “Before” picture, it was badly cracked and scratched, so he sent it to me to work some “Photoshop magic” on it. Fortunately, there weren’t any major problems across her face, so this was actually a relatively simple job. First I duplicated the image on a few layers and played with various settings in the Despeckle filter. I finally got it where it did a decent job on the minor specks and splotches, but it softened her face too much. I fixed this by using a layer mask to create a whole where her face was and then the unedited face showed through it from below. I then spent about 3.5 hours using the clone and smudge tools to correct the big cracks and the yellowed tape across the top. A little hard work later and I think it looks pretty darned good. My friend was VERY happy with the results.