Fading of old photos

[Tom]

Does anyone have any tips for restoring the correct white balance to a faded photo? Something like 'point out the white bit, and I'll take care of the rest' kind of a tool would be nice.

Both these photographs are badly aged, but I reckon with the right know-how, I could get them looking half respectable. The originals are about 3000 pixels wide, so I have plenty to work with.

 

[Mofo8]

The first one is a bit weird, but I had a fart about with the 2nd one, as I thought it was mainly a colour balance problem. It's way past my bedtime, so I only spend 2 mins on it, and I may have sharpened it a bit too much (as it's become a bit 'grainy'), but the main thing to do with it was simply to tone down the red using Photoshop's colour balance adjustment, or working on the red channel alone in the channel palette.

 

[Tom]

ooo thats quite cool. Thanks. Don't worry about the grain, its only an instamatic photo.

 

[amobea]

Just played with the levels a bit for a mild improvement

don't have any experience restoring old photos unfortunately

 

[Tom]

btw I should point out that the second photo was saturated with red, I've altered it now, so it appears fine.