Lost in Photoshop: another old photo restoration part ii

.part ii

I have a tip about straightening the rotation of images -- particularly scanned images.

the old photo is younger than 1901 and older than 1930, I believe. Given the image size (approximately 2 1/4 x 3 1/2) I would guess that it was taken by a Kodak Brownie (probably '2') camera. The original image had faded quite a bit.

I attempt to use various techniques to recover the image, including: level adjustments, use of high pass filter, use of surface blur filter, use of "split masks", and attempting to reconstitute "depth" using linear burn (non-destructively) in an "overlay" [not the mode] layer.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• photoshop
• layer
• blend mode
• linear burn
• adjustment layer
• levels
• masks
• advanced
• technique
• instructions
• tutorial
• photography
• howto
• graphics software
• diy
• tips & tricks

[itseasyfeelinggood]

Great techniques! One general question though...when working with photos that are extremely damaged, would you work on rips and cracks and such last or first? Just wondering if chosing one over the other would make it easier to repair. Thanks for sharing!!

[fxmah]

@itseasyfeelinggood In general, repair the rips and cracks first and build up the image from there. If it looks like all or most of the emulsion is intact, but just torn, mask (pen tool) a dupe layer along the rip/crack and try to position it back in place like a jigsaw puzzle. If there's distortion, use a warp transform to gently reshape (combined with cropping) if possible. Otherwise, use pen tablet to smudge/clone/paint to fill. Faces are priority/require most attention. the rest: notsomuch.

[mrslilmama1]

i have a photo of my faer in law when they were young and it has a lot of water damage from a house fire. do you have any suggestions on how to clean it up?

[fxmah]

@mrslilmama1 Yes, I think a lot of the same techniques could be used to restore an image that has been physically damaged... as long as you still have enough to recover the people's faces. Use the clone stamp tool to reconstitute textures as best as you can. Use masks to help you redraw areas if needed and do not make any changes to the original scan of the image (it will always be your reference.) Layer in all changes. It will make alterations easier, if necessary.

[itseasyfeelinggood]

@fxmah Thank you so much for your quick reply. It is very helpful.

[lebartonne]

it would be great if you speak more in this video and let us know exactly what you're doing and what tools you're using.