This old photo is part of a larger class photo. I am at the point of restoring this boys face. Very tricky. I may try using a nose and an eye from another boy and then touch it up to match. Or, hopefully I can get some advice here, on how to accomplish this. Even as bad of a job as I have done on the face so far, it is not noticable when viewing the entire image. As far as the rest of the image is concerned, I am quite satisfied with how it is turning out.

Photo restoration is something I specialize in, having done it for the last 15 years. The quickest way to restore an image is to use flipped horizontal symmetry, providing that half of the image is workable. You then borrow parts of the "good side" and copy/flip them onto a new layer, blend and rotate, reduce opacity of the top "flipped" layer to align the images. Then its all manual touch-ups from that point. Which involves the clone tool, resynthesizer (heal selection), and soft blur using a fuzzy brush.

Lately, since PhotoComix and David added the anisotropic enhancement for softening images (G'MIC), I find it appealing to use it, and most of my customers prefer it over the regular image.

spectacular. How you ever got all that white from around the eye is amazing. I played around with it with just the clone tool but of coarse I made a real mess....

Holy cow! so thats what took so long to get a reply. I am very happy with what you did. Do you mind if I keep that and use it?
I think I would redo the highlite on the nose. I put that there and it looks kind of cartoony. I will soften it up.
Thanks for you expertise. I see that this is the forum for me.

I've got two boxes of old family photos that I tinker with off and on. And when I say old, I mean some are over 100 years old. The kind that is printed on the very heavy almost cardboard-like paper. Most with cracks and loose pieces. Doing these types of projects takes an incredible amount of concentration (which I all too often lack)and skill (which I am developing), but seeing your work is like a swift kick in the pants - which I need on a regular basis to keep me going. I tend to do more of this during the winter; I probably look like a modern-day gnome: crouched grumbling and muttering over a glowing monitor in a darkened room as the icy winds howl about my dwelling...

I'm sure a professional restorer would have a coronary.

Actually, I find myself in this description, hehehe...

I started out repairing images with Photoshop 5. I started using GIMP a few years ago, accomplishing pretty much the same thing. On occasion, I do switch to PS. Unfortunately, I don't care much for Windows.