proberbly a lost cause but...

positivenote

Hi guys,
my mam gave me an image that she found up in her attic that is of her when she was in a band from the early 1960's. It was extrememly dark but i ran a quick levels adjust on it to brighten it up. The only problem is that i still cant really get any clarity to it. There is also loads of scratches on it. Is there anyone who wants to have a go at working with it as it would be great gift for her...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/37712642@N06/5207264603/

Heebie

It's probably the quality of the scan itself.. it doesn't look like someone SCANNED it to get maximum information out of the image.. just to get high resolution. It also is only a JPG online, which means that you're limited to 256 shades of gray. Scanning it in 16-bit per channel color will give you a lot more data to work with in order to get a final image that gives you detail.

Because the original you have is ANALOGUE the amount of information contained in the image even though it looks like it was pretty crap to begin with, and it's faded with age, is immense, and a good scanner run by someone who knows what they're doing will give you a lot of data to work with.

Where are you at? If it's less than A4 sized, I'll give it a bash & hand you off an enormous file that'll have the capability of looking fantastic after some manipulation.

Zillah

I agree with heebie. The photo might be a little worn but it's clearly a pretty poor scan. The surface of the photo is slightly reflective, I'd say that's why there is such washed out look.