first go get a rectangular marquee and make a selection of an area where there should be a noticeable difference in contrast.

Now go to the Curves option from the pop up adjustment layer menu and choose Options to bring up the Auto color correction options.

In this case, since it is a sepia toned image you can choose Enhance monochromatic contrast. This will increase the dark and light areas independent of color so it works out ok for this example.

Now you have already seen a noticeable improvement in the image. To apply the rest of the adjustment to the layer grab a large soft brush and start painting/unmasking away to reveal the rest of the adjustment layer.

 

This is essentially bringing it back to life and you can choose where you can it to apply to.

Here’s the before...

...and after already.

In this case I’m going to crop the image down so we don’t have that ugly scanned in border. Because we made a selection of an area first, it is going to read the information from that specific area and then apply the color correction to the rest of the image/adjustment layer. If you didn’t make a selection first, it would have picked up the bright white edges and throw everything out of any effective corrective action.

Since the adjustment layer doesn’t change any pixels itself and is completely disposable but you can’t shift pixels on the layer itself, create a duplicate of your original background layer by dragging it to the new layer icon.

Now you have something you can alter pixels on.
As long as the adjustment layer is above layers or on the top, it will apply to whatever is visible beneath (where it isn’t masked).

You can also create custom adjustment layers that ONLY apply to the layer specifically beneath it as you can mask the adjustment layers above it also. I cover this in the photo restoration video training as well as restoring pictures live in tutorial action as it’s done in Photoshop.

Now with this duplicate layer you can go ahead and start fixing the pixel blocky background by using the clone stamp properly to get enough of an area that is usable.

  

Now you can switch to the Patch tool to grab an area of texture that is usable and start using ‘Destination’ to drag it to other areas to start smoothing out that background.

Here I’m continuing to use ‘Destination’ to drag the source patch and keep applying it to different areas. Patch is similar to the Healing brush in that it will remember the source texture and will blend it into the areas around it.

 

The clone stamp is different because it actually copies pixels with color instead of just using the texture and density like the patch/healing tools. The Patch tool will make for much better blends basically but use the clone stamp when there are areas that you do need to FIX pixels on with good pixels first.

Here is a quick example...before

...and after using the clone stamp to get a good area and then working fast by using the Patch tool on ‘Destination’ to drag the sampled texture to replace the bad previous texture while naturally blending in to help create a much smoother background.

This technique you can use to work fast on larger areas but on smaller areas and especially people you will have to take more time and be more careful. At least the background isn’t as distracting..this method is also great to get RID of those blocky pixels. But please folks, when you can, if you have old photo’s DO scan them in at least at print resolution (300) so you have the best possible representation of that image to Start working with.  Click here to find out more about my Photoshop Video tutorial restoration training.