Using undamaged color channel to repair other channels?

[MDavis]

I am working to restore an old wedding photo. The bulk of the damage appears in the red and green color channels; the blue color channel is almost free of the defects.

Is there a way to repair the other color channels with a method like inpainting or healing? Or perhaps to simply duplicate and recolor the blue color channel?

I've attached the image.

[David in Яuislip]

1 hour ago, MDavis said:

s there a way to repair the other color channels with a method like inpainting or healing?

First of all I'd try the inpainting and healing tools on the whole thing but you can try and preserve the blue by turning off the Editable button in the Channels panel

[MDavis]

I tried the inpainting and healing tools and they have some effect but are very time-consuming.

I also generated a grayscale image from the blue color channel and then used it as a source when inpainting. It worked, but replaced the damage with grayscale.

[David in Яuislip]

57 minutes ago, MDavis said:

but are very time-consuming.

Well it's your decision as to how much time to spend but I think it's a smashing picture that deserves the best you can achieve

On the other hand, you can cheat, produce a greyscale from the blue channel, apply a sepia filter then pick out the colours in the flowers

[MDavis]

Great idea! (That's my parents. My mother just suffered a broken hip and is in a rehab facility. She was a parachute rigger in the RCAF. I was trying to clean up some images for her to enjoy.)

Thanks for your suggestion. Have a wonderful day!

[smadell]

I really liked the idea that you wanted to touch up this photo for your mom. Somehow, I couldn't let it go. I used the Blue channel to make a greyscale image (which got rid of a lot of the blotchy damage) and then put a copy of the original image on top of that, changing the blend mode to Color. I used the Paint Brush to brush in areas of similar color to get rid of the damage in the duplicated original. Because the blend mode was set to Color, the fact that I lost a lot of detail while doing this didn't matter, since all that I was doing was substituting color (while relying on the underlying greyscale version to supply the luminosity). Afterward, I did a few corrections (Brightness/Contrast, White Balance, Color Cast removal).

Here's what I came up with. There's a JPG shown below, but I've also attached the .afphoto file in case you want to tinker with it a little more. Best wishes to your mom, of course.

Wedding_Repair.afphoto

[lacerto]

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