Photo restoration

[heather4279]

Hi everyone,
A friend of mine has asked me to retouch a photo for her, however it is outside the scope of my capabilities and was wondering if anyone was willing to give me a hand?

[heather4279]

Did not post the image properly.

[Colin Southern]

Heather? Is that really you? Have you been hiding from us again?

I've had a bit of a play with the image ...

... to be honest, it doesn't need "retouching" so much as it needs "restoration / repair". There's some benefit to be gained from basic global levels adjustments etc, but on closer inspection, it's pretty badly damaged.

I suspect that professional photo restorers could do an excellent restoration, but I imagine it could be expensive - I'm afraid that this isn't going to be one of those fast/cheap fixes. Do you still have access to the original photo? If so, I'd suggest getting a very high-resolution scan of it asap before it degrades even further.