Enhancing and cleaning up an old B&W photo

[vpkumar]

Dear All,

I tried to clean up the photo of the house in AF V2.  I have tried sharpening etc. My question is what would be best way to remove the  smudges on the walls and pillars. I can do it with paint brush. But I want to know if there is better way to make the walls and pillars look clean . Any suggestions would be welcome.

[carl123]

1 hour ago, vpkumar said:

what would be best way to remove the  smudges on the walls and pillars

Depends how long you want to work on it.

For a quick effect, (10 minutes) I just selected the walls and pillars with the selection brush, created a new blank pixel layer, filled the selection with an off-white colour then lowered the opacity of that new pixel layer and added some noise to try to match the existing texture of the image

I did not do the wall on the right, just the two at the front of the house - ran out of time

 

[Ron P.]

FWIW, those appear to be Stucco. In black & white images, they appear to be dirty surfaces, when they're not. So unless you want them smooth, I'd also add some texture to it.

I agree with Carl123, just how much time are you willing to invest?

[vpkumar]

Thank you @Ron P. & @carl123. I am a retired person with enough time on my hands. Not an expert. Just a hobbyist.

I will try both the suggestions. btw how do you use automated AI to reply?

[thomaso]

Another 10 minute result, not manual work but AI tools for upscaling/sharpening (Topaz Gigapixel) and for colouring (jpgHD.com).

Regarding "How to... AI reply": Use one of the various available according interfaces for your input, the same tool (e.g. website) will offer its output to you. For instance: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=DuckDuckGo+AI+Chat&ia=chat&duckai=1

[Ldina]

Lots of ways to do this, depending on your desired outcome. You could try using a Live Bi-lateral Blur filter. Try a setting of around 20 pixels and 10 tolerance, then adjust as desired. Bilateral blur tends to preserve higher contrast edge details, so not everything goes soft and fuzzy. You'd need to use a mask to limit it to the house surfaces you want to soften. I used the selection brush tool to limit the effect to just the house, but doing both of those steps took less than a minute or two.

I agree with @Ron P. that you need some texture or noise, which you'd need to add separately if using the above steps. (You could use the same mask though.)

EDIT: oops....meant to attach my quick edit. This includes a Noise Fill Layer set to Multiply Blend mode for some texture.

My_old_house_in_Kerala-Blur-Noise.afphoto

[vpkumar]

@Ldina @thomaso Thank you for your suggestions and time spent. Very helpful to me.