But none looks like your work. I tend to use clone, smudge, airbrush despeckle and the like to do my 'touchups'
Thanks for the kind words Tom.
That's the latest craze actually. Taking still from high res video. There was the whole uproar with the cover photo of Megan Fox where the photographer just had her go move around in front of the camera, and then pulled the perfect frame.
I do a lot of the same when repairing / touching up. The photo of the Packard limo in front of the brick building is a good example. The original was missing a big chunk on the top right, and another torn section on the bottom right. I just highlight a good area, copy and paste it as a new layer. Stretch or skew it to get the fit right, and blend it in by using the eraser set on fuzzy. I always copy more then I need to replace a missing area so I can really fade the edges to fit the original. Adjust the lighting to match, and merge the pasted section. For whatever reason, the right half was overexposed, so once I did the repairs, I copied the entire half and adjusted the lighting. Fuzzy erased to blend the edges, and merged it. Even on the original high res photo, you'd have to really strain to find the blended area.
Something I found helps when cleaning up the B&W's. I do 90% of this work with the lowest form of photoshop, Elements. Under the enhance tab I got to adj lighting, then shadows and highlights. More often then not, the old photos are faded or over exposed, so I set the shadow brightness to zero or one. Then I darken the highlights very slightly as it grays out the photo easily. The biggie is mid tone contrast. It brings out the detail differently then just adjusting the contrast. You can also adjust multiple light levels. I do actually have a program that will split the pixels, but have really never needed to.
Just play a bit. I never had any formal instruction doing this stuff. In the digital world, you never have to worry about loosing the original. What I found while involved with a facebook group is most people over process the photos. The over use the automated tools the software give you, like removing noise, sharp mask, and remove dust and scratches. I try to do as little repair as I can. I don't want my stuff to look like a color photo just taken. I try for a natural look, as if the photo was taken in color 100 years ago. If you went out today and shot with a 100 years old glass plate set up, and then the exact shot with a modern film camera, the difference would evident. The folks, barring a few, try to make the photo look like a new photo, and much if it looks like crap. There were a few cats that were very good, and at least one I will say has it up on me. I left the group being it started as a place for people who colorize to discuss and trade techniques. Then the guy who started the group, without even asking the group, made the group public, and stated that anybody that wanted a photo repaired or colorized could post it and one of the others would do it for free. In all the time I've been doing this, I haven't made enough to go out for a night, but I sure as hell aint going to be told I can't charge for my work when somebody asks me to do a repair / colorization. It would only take a few minutes for people to realize who to ask when they looked at the work posted. There was 3 or 4 of us. Don't know if others bailed out, but I'm guessing the guy who I class myself just under didn't hang around.
Sorry, I do tend to get long winded when discussing this stuff.