Photo Photograph Restoration with new background

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Hello Its Indie Tommy from indie Tommy tips. Here’s a photo restoration example where we tweak an old photo and add a new background. Here’s a photo of a bride and groom, looks like it dates back to the mid or late 1950s. When we look at this photo, we really cannot see what’s going on in the background behind the because it’s in a dark void, so to speak.
We are told this is the only picture that the client has of their mother and father.
And it’s very small, and it’s in this small frame. The photo is probably 2 1/2“by 3“and they wanted it blown up into an 8 x 10, which I really don’t recommend because whenever you make something that’s small that’s not real clear and blow it up, it starts to pixelate and deteriorate
This couple is washed out because they were in a dark environment and when they were hit with a big onetime flash bulb, back in the 50’s, the intense quick light, shut down the camera’s iris and blackened the background, it became all dark for a split second. And look, you can see her dress is kind of washed out his tuxedo shirt is blown out
The photo’s kind of muddy, so, we thought to make the background and even darker void, Maybe try to brighten up the floors see her reflection in the floors,
but when we added some enhancement, the floors showed even more scratches. We need to get a new floor.
So, we darken the surroundings around them, and reduce the saturated whites.
I cut them out electronically and changed the mid-range iris level to show more detail in her dress and in his white shirt. And I thought this looked pretty good.
but I wasn’t satisfied with it I came back some hours later, and I thought gee I wonder what it would look like if they had some imagery of an altar behind them. Certainly, it’s not there but maybe I should look online for a new background along with some floors and insert in it the background
I know they were married in a Catholic church and I found this background online. This photo is certainly not from the 1950s, but at least I can utilize the pews and floors and alter for reference. And it not only adds depth and a point of reference.
I like these two photos because the pews were kind of similar and I could reference those pews, because they have more detail in them in addition some of the flooring below. But before I darken the background from the borrowed photo, we cloned out the younger bride and groom, change the flowers on the altar, in addition to the a change in the stained glass window in the background
Then I did a test with my client’s parents from the earlier photo and did a test placement in front of my new background and pews
I said certainly I will. Then because I’m a quality control freak, I asked her do you know the actual name and location of the church where they were married was or is? She said yes, it’s from a church in Philadelphia PA, but it has been closed down for years. When I searched for that church online, I actually found that an old inside view of the but only from this viewpoint. It’s the same alter in the background, but only difference is that the vantage point is from the balcony point of view and not a ground level viewpoint
The challenge would be to make a composite mix between what is seen from the balcony and from the ground level and mix it together so it looks like it’s from the same perspective. Now this photo has a harsh orange cast to it, and I needed to decrease the color tones to compliment the original photo, so I started moving the master saturation down along with some other levels and filters
We took that background and blew it up, changed the opacity a bit for reference framing, kind of lined it up with the perspective of where the bride and groom stood from the ground level position. In photoshop, Edit, transform, scale and apply. Later, not shown here, we removed most of these people in the lower third, lowed the opacity, overlay test to line it up here.
My client comes to our office. She freaked out! And started crying, she really liked it a lot!
If you folks like what you’re seeing here, and would like to watch me do a photo restoration in real time in a program, with all the layering, and cloning and use of filters, I show you if you want?
I can take this same photograph or different on where the background needs to be changed, and mix it together in a three-part series, 15 minute each. Let me know what you think in the comments. I’m Tommy from Indy Tommy tips thanks for watching and have a great day

[@johnsfamilychannel6454]

Nice work .... and a lot of it for sure. It made her happy and that is what it is all about.

[@TommyRosaTommyProductions]

Thank you

[@JasonNicolais]

nice job buddy

[@TommyRosaTommyProductions]

Thank you Brother