It's not that the pic was all THAT messed up, but id did have a couple tears and wrinkles, and was covered in dust marks and chips, as well as a few small stains.
Several things made this a weird restoration. First off, like I said, their house just burned down, so some of the dark smudges, etc., are naturally there, and I didn't want to remove them; they're part of what makes this pic memorable. Plus, the father and the older two boys had just returned from working, so their clothes (pants especially) are covered in splatters and drips, which I also had to make sure didn't get edited out. lastly, there appears to be some sort of street map or something on the wall, top left. Can't let that get mucked over.
Well, I think it came out pretty good:
Really, if you saw the full size version of this, you'd be able to tell more (but it's 3000 pixels wide, so I didn't post it). I'm fairly pleased with it (though I keep wanting to shift the colour a little more sepia tone...damn artists!). The biggest problem is that the youngest child (on Mom's right) has a strange red mark across her face and eye,and that was a BITCH to edit out properly. Finally used some dirty tricks to make it work, and it's undetectable in the end, right?
The boy, far right, looking down, that's Ray, my Dad-in-law, by the way. Incidently, I've met his mother...I hope she gets a chance to see this. This picture just mesmerises me, somehow.
zombiedip, after seeing this post, made a beautiful entry about it, and about her father, that I admit, chokes me up a little, too.