This half-century-old color print is the most badly faded photograph I've ever worked on. Although there is considerable shadow density, the midtones and highlights are almost completely gone.The photo looks nearly blank to the naked eye.

Restoring this photo required careful scanning to bring out the least bits of image detail, combined with image multiplying techniques to enhance them. Once contrast and color were restored overall, I did extensive retouching using masked layers to eliminate noise and uneven color and tone in the photograph.

A full description of how I performed this restoration is in my book, Digital Restoration From Start to Finish and online in this book excerpt.

(Time to restore: approximately five hours.)