The one that nearly ended me

I don't think I need to write a lot about the process here, for you to understand how hard it was. This is one of my aunts, and the photo was taken in the 70s. I loved the feel of it, the composition. It was very professionally lit and staged. But the drawback to it was immense. It was damaged beyond belief, with tears coming from all sides, reaching across the body and face.

I started with the clone/stamp tool in Photoshop, as I usually do, getting rid of the outer cracks and the big white tear across the image from top to bottom, that goes over the face. That part was relatively easy. 

Then came the shoulders. Cloning didn't help at all, and that meant only one thing: I had to use digital painting! My disclaimer on that is that it looks good when done from scratch (by the people who know how to use it, which is not me) but that it looks horrendous when applied to real life images. But I had no choice. So I started slowly brushing away, adding pieces of the clothes back to the skin and adding the rest of the necklace. 

The result isn't the best, but I literally had to create something out of nothing. So here it is. Let me know what you think!