How do I fix this?

jeanniem · **Joined:** Nov 04, 2013 **Posts:** 207

My mother died when I was only three and I only have two pictures of my mother both that are black and white and neither are of just her. I recently found this picture and noticed my mother sitting in the background. What I would like to do is crop her out and create a picture of just her. My problem is that one I am not sure it will work do to the poor quality of the photo and two I am not quite sure where to start. I am putting together a family book for my children and brother for Christmas and would love to include a picture of just my mom.

Zumbruk · **Joined:** Nov 29, 2014 **Posts:** 1

[The first thing you need to is scan it at a much higher resolution. I had a quick go at it and can pick your mother out of the background and lighten it so you can see her, but there aren't enough pixels to get decent quality. I've attached my effort ...

Attachment:

Chuck Ernie and Ricky(A).jpg [ 20.27 KiB | Viewed 4016 times ]

molly · **Joined:** Apr 07, 2010 **Posts:** 14182

That is about as good as it could possible get. I used brightness and contrast, then tried some of the gmic smoothing plug-ins, then tried unsharp mask. The picture is very dark and almost impossible to bring out a true likeness.

jeanniem · **Joined:** Nov 04, 2013 **Posts:** 207

I don't have the actual photo to scan. My brother emailed to to me. can I print it out an rescan it or won't that work?

Odinbc · **Posted:** Sat Nov 29, 2014 1:20 pm **(#5)**

jeanniem wrote:

I don't have the actual photo to scan. My brother emailed to to me. can I print it out an rescan it or won't that work?

No that will not help. Can you get a higher resolution scan of the original?

jeanniem · **Joined:** Nov 04, 2013 **Posts:** 207

That would be difficult we live in different states and trying to explain over the phone how he should do it would be extremely difficult he can barely use his camera phone lol.

2-ton · **Posted:** Sat Nov 29, 2014 2:45 pm **(#7)**

If he would take it to a print shop like Kinkos or quick print or office max, they can do it and email it to you, or put it on a CD that could be mailed to you. It should only cost a few dollars, and would be well worth the price.

dinasset · **Posted:** Sun Nov 30, 2014 4:38 am **(#8)**

what has been recommended is of primary importance (get a better scan)
just to be more detailed (numbers are worther than words, sometimes)
- your image as post is 749*569 pixels
- the head of your mother (after the cut) is 73*99 pixels
- the face of your mother (after the cut) is 37*42 pixels.
Hence, it's impossible to enhance it in an at least decent way.
That's the only reason you didn't get sofar many attempts from the chatters.