We look at how you can restore your
treasured old photos using Adobe Photoshop Elements
There are very few people that can’t say
that they don’t have a collection of ageing, dusty and damaged photographs from
years gone by sat somewhere in their house, either in a drawer or worse still,
wasting away in a box in the attic in too bad a condition to put on display.
Before they are beyond repair and become lost forever, perhaps now is the time
to act and have them digitized for future generations to enjoy. Repairing an
old family photograph can be a lengthy and drawn out process, but it’s a very
rewarding experience knowing that you are preserving a memory for others to
enjoy. How complex this process is depends on how much damage there is to the
original photograph and what software you have.
Repairing
an old family photograph can be a lengthy, but it’s a very rewarding experience
knowing that you are preserving a memory for others to enjoy
Scanning the photograph
When it comes to scanning the image it’s
best to digitize it based on the size you want to print it out. If you’re
looking to print the final image out at the same size as the original you would
need to scan it at a resolution of 300dpi, if you want to print it out at
double the size then you need to double the resolution to 600dpi and so on.
Some more modern scanners actually come with software that automatically
removes small defects like fine dust and scratched, but as a rule I tend to complete
the whole process manually as it gives you 100 per cent control over
everything.
If
you have scanned the image at the maximum resolution of your scanner, you now
have a faithful reproduction of the original photograph with all of its defects
What options are available?
There are a number of different image
editors out there available for both Windows and Apple-based machines. These
range from the free image editor GIMP to the industry standard Adobe Photoshop,
which is undoubtedly the undisputed image editor of choice for both designers
and photographers throughout the world. Sitting between both of these is
Photoshop Elements 10, the more affordable consumer offering from Adobe. Let’s
take a closer look at these options.
Gimp
GIMP (GNU Image Manipulation Program) is a
free suite of photo editing tools, not too dissimilar to those available in
high-end options like Adobe Photoshop. It is primarily an image retouching and
editing tool, which is available as a free download in versions for Microsoft Windows
and Mac OS X.
In addition to detailed image retouching
and free-form drawing, GIMP can perform simple image editing tasks such as
resizing, editing, and cropping photos, photomontages combining multiple
images, and converting between different image formats. GIMP can be downloaded
at www.gimp.org.
Adobe Photoshop Elements 10
Adobe Photoshop Elements is the cheaper
version of Adobe Photoshop and like its big brother is an excellent choice for
those looking to get the best out of their images. Elements primarily targets
hobbyist users, which means it is available at a fraction of the cost of the
professional product. It contains most of the features of the professional
version too, but with fewer and some simpler options. Over the years the gap
between the two programs has closed somewhat. Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 is
available from Adobe at www.adobe.com/photoshopelements
I’m
going to use Adobe Photoshop Elements 10 to demonstrate how easy it is to
repair an old photograph from start to finish using a variety of tools
I’m going to use Adobe Photoshop Elements
10 to demonstrate how easy it is to repair an old photograph from start to
finish using a variety of tools. As mentioned earlier, the only tool that
Elements lacks is the patch option, which enables you to be able to clone from
large areas of the image by drawing a selection around the area you want to
replace then dragging it to the area you want to use to replace it. This is a
relatively new tool in Photoshop that I would imagine will eventually make its
way into the toolset of Elements. For this reason, the main tools that I’ll be
looking at in the repair process will be Clone Stamp tool and the Healing Brush.
The Clone Stamp tool
In a nutshell, the Clone Stamp tool allows
you to duplicate part of an image. The process involves setting a sampling
point in the image, which will be used as a reference to create a new cloned
area. Unlike the Healing Brush, the clone stamp tool only clones what it sees,
making no adjustment to tone or texture as it goes. I tend to use the Clone
Stamp tool on areas of high contrast as this can cause problems when using the
Healing Brush.
The Healing Brush
The Healing Brush allows you to correct
imperfections in a similar way to the Clone Stamp tool. Like the Clone Stamp
tool, you paint with pixels sampled from part of your image (which you can
specify), however, the Healing Brush tool automatically matches and blends
together all of the relevant shades and textures to keep your repairs as
seamless as possible.
The
Healing Brush tool automatically matches and blends together all of the
relevant shades and textures to keep your repairs as seamless as possible
In this tutorial, I will take an in-depth
look at how you can restore an old battered and creased family photograph to
ensure that the memories of yesteryear live on for future generations to enjoy.
Restoring an old family photo is incredibly rewarding and is something that you
can do for your relatives and is guaranteed to bring tears to their eyes. As an
added bonus, repairing old photos is something that you can offer to clients,
or simply use it as an extra string to your bow.
Let’s take a step-by-step look at the best
way to go about restoring an old photograph to its former glory using the
consumer targeted yet powerful image editor Adobe Photoshop Elements. As
explained earlier, Elements is an ideal and affordable starting point for
anyone who wants to be able to edit and manipulate their images, plus it shares
pretty much the same tool set as Adobe’s full-blown professional offering
Photoshop.
One thing to be aware of before you start
scanning the original image is that part of the charm of old prints can be in
the sepia tones, so although you may want to colour correct the image once it
has been scanned, it’s best to not completely discard the sepia tones by
scanning the whole thing as a black and white image. In my opinion that can
cause a lot of its character to be lost – you are much better off scanning in
colour or as sRGB for the more advanced users, as sRGB is the colour space most
online printing companies use. If you do intend to convert to black and white
it is still better to scan the photo as a colour image, as it’s easier to
remove the colour tones than it is to add them later.
