GIMP Version: 2.8.14
Operating System: Linux
OS Version: Ubuntu18.04
GIMP Experience: Basic Level

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I have a friend who has given me a negative of an Honest John being launched from Salisbury plain.
It's in poor condition, but noticeably the clouds are faint and blue.
It's a shame to let this bit of history disappear.
I've scanned it to 3600 dpi, so I won't try to post it here, but hopefully I can insert a thumbnail.
Where do I start?

Make a few more posts - up to 5. Then put your scanned photo in a dropbox and post the link here. (you will not be able to post photos or links until you have at least 5 posts under your belt)

I would normally start with 'white balance' which should give you correct colours or play around with the levels until they look right.
If you cannot get the colours corrected turn it to a black and white film and restore it.. Someone may be able to colourise it again for you.
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If you wish someone to look at your photo for you post the link in the "Photo Restoration and Enhancement forum"

Thanks.
I'll get cracking on the posts.
Next post: I'm Off to the "Introduce Yourself" thingy...

It's looking good.
Pity about your memory.
If you ever remember, I will try it on the big version (the one posted only being a thumbnail-ish).
I have a problem enhancing the "white" clouds and the "white" smoke from the "blue" background.
But first of all, I'll post in the right place....
Cheers!

Had a go but no idea what I'm doing

To be in the game (not a very good outcome).


Steps:
- blur sky area
- (my) white balance
- selective saturation
- unsharp mask

After some post-process to brighten the image.

Don't spend your time on this.
I've posted in the correct place, a link to the big picture (actually, I've linked the original scan of the negative).
Above is only a cut down version.
But thanks for the efforts guys.
(Teapot's was very promising)..

[quote="teapot"]Had a go but no idea what I'm doing

Nice!

I don't believe you. I think you know what you are doing.

You don't have to explain what you did exactly, but what tools did you use? What do you remember?

Hi Fitch,


Are you sure it's a colour negative? Looking at the negative in your other thread, if you look at the histogram and go through the RGB channels they are all separate.

How did you get from the negative to the picture in the first post of this thread?

I used Colours > Invert
and then adjusted Colours > Hue-Saturation
Since then I've been fiddling around with the Linux XSane Scanner app corrections, which deal with the negative inversions using different types of negative, e.g Agfa, Kodak, Fuji, etc. and have posted on a different Gimp chat forum (Photo Restoration & Enhancement), as asked.

A short approximation without any kind of cleaning.
The adjustments are not the best, but they serve as a reference.

Thank you very much Krikor. I am so happy to learn how to do this

Thank you Krikor. Very helpful. I was wondering how to do that, also.

I'm sure most of you guys know about this already, but anyway...

An old technique I learned in the mid to late 1990's, while working at a print shop, was to use a blurred copy of the image, set clone origin somewhere on the blurred copy, and then switch to the original and set the clone origin to exactly the same spot, while having the clone tool set to align. Clone tool should be set to darken only. Perfect for filling in bright spots.

Set the tool to brighten only to fill those dark spots.

Goes without saying that you should use a tiny brush, or your editing will show.

The benefit is that you don't change anything but the small spots that are problematic. The down side is it takes time.

There is the healing tool these days, yes, but sometimes I go back to tested things, because the healing tool doesn't work all that well near edges.

Thank you all.
The original negative scanned to 26 MB, so I could claw back as much detail as I could.
I can now work on it and clean it up.
Apparently it was a winter's day in Salisbury plain, but the sun had melted most of the snow, leaving a muddy/grass field, so the sky/ground colour isn't too bad.