Cleaning Grey Scale Help

[otakufan28]

Hello,
I need advice in smoothing out the small specs everywhere in picture 1 in order to look like picture 2. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!! Also any criticism would be helpful.
Picture 1: http://imagehost.bizhat.com/show.php?id=297127

Picture 2: http://imagehost.bizhat.com/show.php?id=297128

 

[Emery]

The raw in picure #1 was most likely scanned at an odd DPI or overleveled. I suggest trying to find better scans, and don't waste your time with that one.

 

[Vato Loco!]

basically what emery said. It's scanned poorly and they are both over-leveled. There's only so much you can do with a poor raw like that.

 

[otakufan28]

Here is the original raw:
http://imagehost.bizhat.com/show.php?id=297271

Picture 1 is what I have done so far. My main objective was to work on the shadowing to make it similar to Picture 2. Unfortunately the bumps show up every where and when I greyscale, as well as, darken certian areas the specs become even more visible. I have tried reading many of the tutorials. Did I overlevel it or is it just because the original raw was scanned poorly.

 

[Emery]

You did overlevel it. But that raw was very poorly scanned. There's not a whole lot you can do with it.

 

[Vato Loco!]

Yeah. Both images are way overleveled. Here's a better leveled one. Though because of the way it's scanned, it still has quite a bit of dust in it.

Spoiler

My process went as follows; I set the mode to gray scale. Re-sized the image using bi-cubic smoothener to 1200px. Then a levels layer with the settings at

Black slide: 60

Gray slide: not touched

white slide: 235

Then an exposure layer with the settings at

Exposure: 0

Offset= -0.0137

Gamma Correction: 1.06

Then flatten the image and do a second levels layer set at this

Blacks-not touched

grays- not touched

whites slide- 252