Thanks Ange! very clean, but the faces have morphed just a little bit – no Topaz Girls though! 
Here is the original scan for people to play with:
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yes! I agree, could be worked more to integrate faces closer to original but it’s End of my shift so posted where I was at! Since some faces miss details altogether, they will have to be almost fully generated! Have a great night!
No problem, thanks again for your efforts!
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My goodness the bottom of that picture looks a nightmare! I can’t really view all your efforts at the moment I’m having a migraine and have disturbed vision and can’t focus properly.
Nevertheless I’ll post my full size picture for judgement. It’s not bad for a first try. The clothes and hands aren’t the best, but it’s not bad for a first try with the new Dust and Scratch.
You all have a good evening.
Regards Bob.
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That’s quite good as well! Integrity of faces is mostly maintained.
Perhaps if some manual cleanup was done first within the confines of the heads, results would be even better.
I wish I knew who these people are! I know where the image came from but am not sure which branch of the family it represents. Do they look more Irish or Italian? If the latter, perhaps it would be my grandfather’s brother’s in-laws (but the wife was Irish/Italian, so could go either way…).
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I would guess Irish (latter half of 19th c. - 1920’s & 30s), based on the hats.
But can’t know for sure. Just a sense from days of theatre arts & costume design.
Plus, they are very fair skinned. So unless your relatives were quite northern Italian, probably less likely Italian.
p.s. One of the challenges of these AI programs (especially for portraits, but nature & landscape too) is to not end up with the over-smoothed, too perfect quality (like on the skin) that immediately gives the images away as (over worked) AI output.
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Hello plugsnpixels,
I’ve been really interested following your detailed and informative posts on Dust and Scratches. Initially the tool wasn’t at all useful but it is certainly improving with each release. I remember that you were not so much into Text Prompts and I’ve been intrigued by the amazing images you render relying on random seeding.
Anyway my research into Long and Short text prompts has continued spurred on by most helpful tips for using ChatGBT (sorry cannot find who first suggested that) and Google-Gemini from https://community.topazlabs.com/u/Harald.De.Luca - many thanks to them and others.
Later today or tomorrow I want to test Long and Short prompts on the tintype family group you kindly posted using the AI apps for prompts in Topaz. I don’t expect huge improvement in results with text prompting but it’s possible that a really good prompt could produce a small improvement - time will tell.
Today I thought it might be interesting to use AI for analysing and possibly helping to date your image as well as providing a draft text description of it. I thing the AI results are quite impressive bordering on unbelievable.
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Asking ChatGBT - can you date this photo from the style of the hats, shirt collars and clothing. family ancestors probably from Ireland and Italy - produced this moderately long answer:
Photographic Format: Tintype
- This photo is a tintype, a direct positive image on a thin sheet of metal.
- Tintypes were widely used from the 1850s to the early 1900s, especially in more rural or working-class communities, where the technology lingered longer.
Fashion Clues
Hats
- Most of the men are wearing bowler/derby hats, which were extremely popular from the 1870s through the 1910s.
- The variation in crown heights and brims suggests late Victorian to early Edwardian (i.e., 1890s–1905).
Shirt Collars
- The collars are high and stiff, sometimes with a visible detachable look.
- This style was typical in the 1890s through around 1910, before softer collars became widespread.
Neckwear
- Most are wearing thin ties or cravats, tied tightly, another fashion trend from the 1890s–early 1900s.
- No wide or flamboyant Edwardian cravats, which pushes the date back a bit earlier.
Suits and Lapels
- The jackets are dark, conservative, with fairly narrow lapels.
- High-buttoned vests and coats were typical of turn-of-the-century fashion.
Props and Posing
- The photo includes a chair draped with a fringed cloth, common in studio portrait photography of the time.
- The poses are casual but arranged, with some physical contact (hands on shoulders), which was more acceptable in late Victorian/Edwardian era portraits of young men.
Ethnic and Social Context
Given your note that these men were likely of Irish and Italian ancestry, and based on the clothing:
- This could well be a working-class or immigrant group in the United States or the UK, or perhaps even back in Ireland or Italy.
- Immigrant communities often adopted current fashion trends quickly for formal portraits, even if their daily wear differed.
Estimated Date Range
Circa 1895–1905
This matches:
- The height of the bowler hat trend.
- The stiff high collars and narrow ties.
- The continued use of tintype photography in less urban areas or by traveling photographers.
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Asking Google Gemini the same question produces an extraordinary lengthy research paper answer describing the methodology it will use to determine the photo’s date, the references it will examine, its actual analysis and its conclusion. Since it runs to 5 screen pages I attach a Notepad++ text file version for sake of brevity - for anyone slightly interested it is incredible.
A very puzzling thing about the Gemini analysis
is that it mentions seven men in the photo more than once - possibly there is a steganography image of the 7th man concealed in the scratches ? As a senior lecturer in IT and Graphics 25 years ago I had a LINUX graphics app that detected hidden image content and composite images for the purpose of checking student’s work for plagiarism. Somewhere in the boxes in our garage there may be an old 3½-inch or even a 5¼-inch floppy disc but sadly the old drives to use them were recycled 20+ years ago!
So for the moment the 7th man remains hidden - actually perhaps it’s The Third Man who is hiding ? (Only older folks will get that …)
Thanks again for providing such an interesting photo for us to investigate and its family historical background.
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I suspect Orson could get to the bottom of this mystery.
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Perhaps if the photo was taken in Vienna …
Not bad ?
Well this is what ChatGBT produced when after giving its opinion of the date of the photo I asked it to - please enhance and clean up this photo with facial restoration and scratch removal for better detail
I think that is pretty darn good for a free service.
Without a subscription it seems you get 5 free images a day.
I will test tomorrow whether that’s 5 “asks” ie either generate an image or provide a detailed text description for a text prompt OR 5 image generations and 3 topic asks
Overall I rate this as probably 9 out of 10 for restoration image quality - it’s close to a 10.
- The spot and scratch removal is amazing !
- facial restoration is very good but eyeballs and eyelids are just a bit spooky
- hands & fingers are great even if slightly adjusted in placement - Topaz please note !
- feet and polished shoes are very nicely managed - starting at Creativity Med Topaz isn’t that good with legs and feet yet !
- I’m quite disappointed in the shirt collars where very distinctive wing-tip collars have been rendered as round cutaway fold down collars
- and individual tie knots have been homogenised
- I’m hoping that a really specific request in Topaz text prompting might retain the individual differences of the collars and ties
- in the original under the scratches I think the group is posed on a sculptured dais which ChatGBT has not picked up
- that also may respond to a specific mention in a good prompt
- the substitution of the dais with a beautiful Victorian 3 leg pedestal side table on the left and a wooden spindle chair on the right is a great match for the period
The whole restoration manages to retain the period style perfectly and I can almost feel them holding their breath and posed posture for the photo exposure - 5 are looking directly at the camera only the seated man on the right is gazing at somebody or something behind the photographer
I also like the nicely rounded corners of the restoration and not sharp 90 degree corners.
I expect some people will suggest a touch of grain for the final period touch ?
It was a great photograph and ChatGBT produced a very good restoration in my opinion.
I’m impressed with ChatGBT !
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looking stunning, indeed
This is a typical example for the weaknesses of ChatGPT:
While the result in fact does look good at first sight this is only true if you don’t know the original (or even the real people in the photo).
Those are quite totally different guys that ChatGPT inserted there - generally ChatGPT alters the image much too much to be only remotely true to the original. I don’t know if that could be diminished with different prompting.
E.g:
This
is a totally different guy/face compared to the original
not even the hat is preserved - and the rotation of the head has changed, look e.g. at the ears, different lighting (shadow on the left side of the nose), or face details like eyebrows, upper eye lids, narrower head at the bottom ,…
So: many, many things wrong with that “cleanup” which ended more in replacing of damaged parts with only roughly similar parts where ChatGPT had higher res. sources than actually restoring.
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Yes. I agree. It makes them look a right bunch of nefarious characters. Tax inspectors most probably. 
regards.
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Yes thank you. I get no pain with it nowadays, just vision disturbance which makes it difficult to read and focus properly.
Best regards Bob.
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We all threw our hats in the ring and you are bowled over by the response 
Regards.
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That’s funny, it crossed my mind if we could find her here
Looks like some vaudeville act!
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Topaz Gyrl!!!
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Wow you have solved the mystery of Gemini’s 7th man !!!
These lovely ladies are 6 of the 7 Brides for 7 Brothers - Eureka Halleluiah !!!
Gemini was right - there is a hidden 7th man in the original image somewhere !
We need Clouseau for sure … 
…
Just one more thing …
I’m out of here
Over and Out — England 3 - West Indies 0
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Sorry for a delayed reply to your post - I’ve been very busy and didn’t manage to get round to it until today.
Thanks for your comments and I agree with you in many respects. In retrospect I was tired and my eyesight was poor after a few hours squinting at details. I definitely missed a good few things and I was frustrated by not getting better results with removing scratches whether I tried in Photo AI or Photoshop. I was just so surprised by the image quality in the ChatGBT render that I probably - certainly - rated it too generously in regard to accuracy.
Here in Thailand we have many jokes about “brown envelopes” - they contain bribe money for favors and are of course totally illegal but they do work here and nothing gets done without them in most cases. I promise there was no brown envelope in my case.
I’m still short of time to properly discus the issue of what is acceptable in terms of restoring an image to the extent of destroying original content. For me the original tintype with all its defects and scratches is unquestionably the only thing I would want to hang on my wall and keep.
BUT … I do believe that there can sometimes be justification for an over-restored version for specific purposes.
I am not sure whether posting a link to a non-Topaz forum will land me in hot water, but I hope that some leniency is allowed over boundaries in the case of a common topic of discussion.
Currently there is a very interesting post in the DPReview Retouching Forum regarding 3 very old Canadian sepia photos from 1863, and different opinions on how they should be edited and used for a poster display in the museum. The OP is a volunteer involved with scanning and archiving photos but he makes the point that “This restoration is not for archival purposes so I can use B&W” ie he isn’t required or wanting to maintain the sepia tone in the original.
So for me this would be a clear case where the current need allows for flexibility rather than 100% accuracy of restoration or facsimile copying.
I think the Museum Curator has not yet decided which of many different retouched efforts should be used - I am very interested to see which version she chooses to use.
If you are interested and able to look at the link I would like to have your opinion on the discussion and any of the suggested restorations.
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