Photo retouching: saving old photos. How to Recover Old Photos Restore and Retouch Old Photos in Photoshop

Last week my grandma asked if I could restore an old, ruined childhood photo of my father. I said I'd try, but I'm not promising anything. I knew that the level of damage in the photo would probably be beyond my knowledge, or the technology I have. After I received the photo in the mail, my worst expectations were met; this proved to be no easy task.

As you can see, the photo is so badly damaged that a large portion of the face is missing. This usually happens when a wet photo dries and sticks to another photo. I've compiled a list of tips for separating sticky photos:

• Keep a close eye on those photographs whose negatives you do not have. Once a photo gets wet or moldy, it will be almost impossible to save it.
• Handle wet or stuck photos carefully, their surface may be very fragile. Avoid touching the surface of the image.
• If you see that the condition of old photos is starting to deteriorate, it's best to redo them while you can. Take new photos from old ones after absorbing moisture (see below for moisture absorption).
• Remove photos from matte, glass or plastic frames as carefully as possible without causing any harm. Also, if the pasted photo is in good condition, it can be scanned with a frame and sent a digital copy for restoration.
• If you have stuck photos, they can be separated in warm water, if the water becomes dirty, it needs to be changed. It will take you about an hour to loosen them.
• Wet photographs can be rinsed in clean water, if necessary, and sealed in a plastic container or ziplock bag.
• A good way to preserve photographs is to place wax paper between the photographs.
• If you have a freezer, freeze the photos. Later they can be thawed, separated and dried.
• If you don't have access to a freezer or refrigerator, rinse damp photos in clean water and dry by laying them face up on a clean surface such as a table or towel.
• You can reduce the growth of mold in a photo if you store it in a dry and ventilated place. Open windows, turn on fans, air conditioners and moisture separators.
• Do not dry photos in direct sunlight.
• To prevent photos from curling, you can add a sinker at the corners of the photo.

If the photo is already damaged and you need to fix it, here are a few tips and methods that I used. Remember that even if you have an artistic eye and you know what the missing parts of the face will look like, always work from a copy, not the original.

What You Will Need

1. Good scanner. If you do not have it, scan the photo in any other place.
2. Any version of Photoshop
3. It's not required, but I used a Photoshop plugin called Alien Skin Exposure

Step One: Scan

Make sure you are scanning your photo at the highest possible resolution. I recommend at least 300dpi. High resolution is required because you will be using other parts of the image as you work, and low resolution may produce unexpected results (remember that film has a much higher resolution and you will experience pixel loss. In small images , loss in pixels is not noticeable).

Make sure you remove dust and fingerprints from your pictures. Dust must be removed prior to scanning using compressed air, a soft brush, or an optical grade cleaning cloth.

Step Two: Color Correction

There are many ways to color correct in Photoshop. I most often use Threshold, which can be created with an additional layer.

• To do this, create a duplicate layer with the photo, select the entire document (Ctrl+A), copy (Ctrl+C) and paste (Ctrl+V), then click on the little yin-yang icon at the bottom of the layers panel and select Threshold. The Threshold window will open and everything will turn black and white.
• Move the slider all the way to the left and slowly return to its place. The first black pixels to appear on the image are the darkest areas of the photo. Once you see them, click OK.
• Zoom in on these pixels, select the Color Sampler Tool (I), and place a marker in the center of these black pixels.
• Once you've set the marker, you can get rid of the layer's Threshold by moving it to the trash can icon in the layers panel, or by pressing Delete. The top layer will return to its previous appearance, and the marker will remain visible.
• Next, create a new Threshold layer and repeat the same steps, with the only difference being that you drag the slider to the right. This will indicate the lightest areas in the photo.
• Add another marker and delete the Threshold layer. It's time for color correction.
• Click Image -> Adjustments -> Curve to open the Curves panel.
• In the Curves panel, select the black tipped eyedropper and click on the first marker showing the darkest pixels. You may need to enlarge the images for a more accurate work.
• Do the same for the lightest parts of the photo, but with a white tip eyedropper. These actions will determine the black and light areas and help in color correction.

Step Three: Recovery

Select the Clone Stamp Tool (S) and change the mode from Normal to Darken. This will help to clone pixels from one area to another, overexposed area. I used this tool for hair and face. For softer transitions, I used a soft brush of different sizes.

In my case, I focused on the face, because he was absent.

In this case, it is very important to have an artistic eye, because. missing areas must be drawn as accurately as possible; for example, you need to redraw the right side of the mouth and lips. It's very lucky that the left part remained intact, and you can copy it, flip it horizontally, change the angle, and place it in the right place. Next, use the Clone Stamp Tool to touch up the edges of the lips. Correcting the background in this case was not difficult, in addition, I decided to return the image to its original shape of a rectangle without a paper frame glued to the photo.

When cloning the missing areas with a soft brush, you will notice that they are more blurred than the rest of the image, because. it has a lot of noise. To fix this, I used Filter -> Noise -> Add Noise and checked the Monochrome box. Next, I adjusted the intensity of the noise until I brought the image to a single result.

At this stage, I was very pleased with the work done, but, despite this, there were areas of skin color in which it did not look natural. I used the Alien Skin Exposure plugin. With this plugin, I simulated a black and white photo and added sepia. To add sepia, you need to use the Sepia - Mid Band Split setting. I couldn't believe that I was done with the restoration of this photo. This is the first time I've come across photographs damaged to such an extent.

Step Four: Print

We have reached the simplest stage in the work, it remains only to print the restored photo. I wish you all good luck!

From April 12, 2015 to early June, there were many posts based on these photos. Dmitry himself became interested in this process, bought a good scanner that allows you to digitize images from any media in a very high resolution, and started restoration. Moreover, his approach differs from most restorers and retouchers from Photoshop. The main goal is to recreate the original image, not a quick result. The examples below fully illustrate what has been said.
Personally, I have my own selfish interest in Dmitry's venture - what if something local history from the family bins pops up!))) If someone deems it appropriate to distribute this post, we will be very grateful!)))
Dmitry leads a group on Odnoklassniki https://ok.ru/profile/570398517042, connect!)))
Original taken from g_decor Restoration of old and damaged photographs.

We have a new type of service for the restoration of old and damaged photographs, color and black-and-white negatives, slides and archival photographic documents. The quality of the copy is significantly superior to the quality of the original material.

Time does its job: photographs on paper and film deteriorate over time, begin to fade, fade, become covered with small cracks and scratches. You can restore them to their original appearance with the help of photo restoration.

Modern methods of restoration allow extensive work on image correction:

1. Remove scratches, cracks, bruises, folds, dust effects and small interferences.

2. Increase sharpness to a certain limit on fuzzy and blurry photos.

3. "Glue" torn photos, while the place of "gluing" parts of the photo becomes invisible.

4. Restore lost parts of the image.

5. Adjust the brightness, contrast of the image, perform color correction.

6. If necessary, replace the background with a uniform one to highlight a specific object or person in a group photo.

It should be noted that the concepts of retouching and restoration differ from each other and have different tasks.

In the case of retouching, it is necessary to produce the most beautiful photo, hide flaws and show the image more spectacular than it really is. Similar photos can be seen in glossy magazines. There is an effect of a certain artificiality. There is an element of fiction in each photo. Such work, basically, is connected with the ability to use graphic programs and is purely technical.

In the case of restoration, the main thing is the impeccable preservation of the information of the original image, its historical authenticity. This is much more difficult to achieve. It is necessary to remove only the interference that interferes with the perception of the original. In the case of restoration, it is not enough to master the graphic editor, you must have the skills of an artist. A person without training and a certain experience of such work is not able to achieve a good result. The restoration of each photo requires a lot of time, painstaking work and care.

It is possible to scan historical photographs in extremely high resolution, allowing you to see the smallest details of the source without loss of quality.

Here are more examples of photos, "before" and "after" their restoration. Look.

Preserve your family archive for posterity. Only those who remember their "roots" have a future.

I would be grateful for the dissemination of information. Contact phone: 89139788415

Original entry and comments on

Restoring an old photo in Photoshop

Time can leave its mark on the pictures in your photo album, turning them into old and damaged photos with cracks and scratches.

In this tutorial, we will show you how to use the Adobe Photoshop editor, restore old photo and rid priceless family photos of extraneous shades, cracks, dust and scratches.

First, we'll look at how to restore the right hue from a faded photo by restoring the color tint to an old baby photo.

Restoring contrast and removing extraneous shades is quite simple. To do this, on the layers palette, select the layer of the open image and call the context menu by right-clicking on the image thumbnail. In the context menu that appears, select the Duplicate Layer command - create a duplicate layer.

Go to the tab Image - image, and execute the command Auto Contrast - auto-contrast. In most cases, the automatic color and contrast functions do a good job of correcting discolored or distorted tones. However, if the automatic algorithms cannot solve the problem properly, you should use the function of changing the levels of color shades. To do this, you need to create a new adjustment layer by clicking on the Create a New Fill from Adjustment Layer icon - creates a new adjustment layer or fill layer located at the bottom of the layers palette and selecting the Levels command - levels.

On the Adjustments panel that appears - correction, you need to move the black and white markers under the histogram to the center to increase the contrast.

Thus, after applying the Auto Contrast function, we increased the contrast using the Levels adjustment layer and restored the color tone of the photo in just a couple of steps.

Also, with the help of the Photoshop editor tools, you can remove unwanted tint from the photo.

Consider this with an old home photo that has a pronounced red tint. To begin with, on the layers palette, select the layer of the open image and call the context menu by right-clicking on the image thumbnail. In the context menu that appears, select the Duplicate Layer command - create a duplicate layer.

Now go to the Image tab and run the command Auto Tone - auto tone.

In most cases, we will get neutral shades. If the colors still don't look neutral, create a new adjustment layer by clicking on the Create a New Fill from Adjustment Layer icon at the bottom of the Layers Palette and choose the Levels command.

Go to the settings on the Adjustments panel, and in the Channel menu - channel, select the command Red - red. Next, you need to drag the middle marker to the left to increase the red hue or to the right to weaken it. After that, in the Channel list, select the Green command - green and move the gray marker again. Repeat the same action by selecting the Blue channel - blue.

If you set the Channel list to RGB, you can use a gray marker to lighten or darken the entire image without changing its color.

With the Photoshop editor, you can restore old photos removing small dust particles, cracks and scratches from them. Consider how to perform these operations on the example of an old military photo.

First create an empty transparent layer. To do this, go to the tab Layer - layers and in the drop-down list New - new, select the command Layer. You can also use the keyboard shortcut Shift + Ctrl + N. Now let's move on to removing cracks in the photo. Tears, scratches, creases and cracks that are present in many old photographs are most conveniently eliminated with the Spot Healing Brush Tool - a spot healing brush. And the Clone Stamp Tool is a stamp.

To get started in the toolbar, select the Spot Healing Brush Tool, you can also use the hotkey J. In the attribute bar, check the Sample All Layers checkbox. Sample all layers. And set the appropriate brush diameter.

Click on the defective part of the photo, gradually removing the crack. You may need to repeat this operation several times.

If the result does not suit you, then try using the Clone Stamp Tool located on the toolbar. First you need to set the starting point from which the area will be copied to replace the defect. To do this, while holding the Alt key, select the area on the image that is most suitable for replacing the defect and click the left mouse button. Then click on the defect. As you can see, the Clone Stamp Tool is much better suited to this image than the Spot Healing Brush Tool.

In the same way, continue to carefully paint over the cracks, while remembering to set new starting points.

With the help of the Clone Stamp Tool, you can also restore missing corners and fragments of the image by selecting the starting point in the same way.

It should be noted that we apply the Spot Healing Brush and Clone Stamp Tool to an empty layer, and not to copies of the original image. Because in this case, the tools will only borrow information from the background layer. This is very convenient so that after making changes, we can adjust the adjustment layers without fear of changing the color of the corrected areas.

Now let's see how to remove dust and scratches from this image. First, let's create a new layer, merging the previous two. To do this, hold down Ctrl and left-click on both layers, thereby selecting them. Next, click on any layer with the right mouse button and in the context menu that appears, execute the Merge Layers command. After the layer is created, call the context menu by clicking on the image thumbnail with the right mouse button. In the context menu that appears, select the Duplicate Layer command - create a duplicate layer. To remove dust and scratches, Adobe Photoshop often uses the Dust&Scratches filter located in the Noise group on the Filter tab. In the dialog box that appears, set the Radius value to 6 and the Threshold value to 16. And click OK.

This filter slightly blurs the image, so after applying it, you should add a new layer mask. To do this, click on the Add Layer Mask icon at the bottom of the Layers panel.

Zoom in for a better view and select the Brush Tool, setting the foreground color to black. Treat those areas where details need to be restored. For example, the outlines of a figure, eyes or lips. Thus, we have rid the images of many defects, significantly improving its appearance.

Also, to restore a photo, you can tint a black and white image to some shade. Using the following photo as an example, we'll look at how to tone an image to a sepia tone.

To do this, you need to create a color balance adjustment layer. Click on the button Create a New Fill from Adjustment Layer, located at the bottom of the layers palette, and select the command Color Balance - color balance.

On the Adjustments panel, in the Tone group, check the item Midtones - midtones.

To achieve a sepia tone, increase the red and yellow colors by dragging the sliders to the desired hue. The result will pleasantly surprise you.

It should be noted that there are such damage to the photo, which is very difficult to restore. If a part of the photo requires a very complex correction, as in this image, then you can try to cut off the damaged area using the Crop Tool - frame. On the toolbar, select the Crop Tool or use the hot key "C" and select the image starting from the corner of the photo.

As you can see, the selected area remains visible, while the outer one becomes darker. You can also hold down the left mouse button inside the selected area and move the frame to the desired position. Similarly, you can change the frame size. To do this, hold down the left mouse button on the corner markers of the created selection and move the cursor until the required size is obtained.

Then press the "Enter" key on the keyboard. Or double-click with the left mouse button to crop the image to the frame. Using this method, you can quickly crop an image by removing photo defects, as well as fine-tune the size of the future image.

Thus, thanks to the tools of the Adobe Photoshop editor, restore old photos won't be difficult. You can easily remove blemishes and damage, as well as restore color and contrast to faded photos, resulting in refreshed images.

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Restoring a photograph may seem like a time-consuming and sometimes impossible task. However, this is absolutely not the case, because Photoshop tools will help you easily restore even the most seemingly time-damaged picture.

In this material, you will learn how to apply corrective, learn how to work with such useful tools as Healing Brush Tool (Healing brush) and Clone Stamp Tool (Stamp), as well as understand the basic principles of old pictures. But before you start the lesson, you need to understand one simple fact - each photo always requires a different approach, because there is no specific restoration rule, but the methods and techniques described below can be applied to any damaged image. You just need to learn how to combine different techniques and then you can restore a snapshot of any damage complexity. Well, let's get started!

Step 1

Open the image in Photoshop. First you need to adjust the contrast, because the image looks too light. To do this, it is better to use an adjustment layer. Levels (Levels). Remember that for color correction, using adjustment layers is much preferable to using the Adjustments menu (Correction). The fact is that using a layer allows you to adjust the colors at any time. In addition to the flexibility of work, you can also remove the adjustment layer and thereby restore the original settings.

So apply adjustment layer Levels (Levels). To apply it, click on the icon Create new fill or adjustments Layer (Create a new adjustment layer), which is located in the palette Layers (Layers):

You will see a menu with level settings. By moving the right and left sliders, try to achieve the desired result:

Step 2

Now you need to get rid of seams, dust and dirt. To clean up such defects, you can use the Healing Brush Tool (Healing brush) (Hot key J):

The principle of the Healing Brush is simple, as you will now see. First, let's get rid of the seam on the girls' fur coats. So select the main layer, set the desired brush diameter (slightly larger than the seam) and hold down the Alt key and without releasing click approximately in the place, as shown in the figure below:

Then release the Alt key and go over the seam:

As you understand, the repair brush uses the pixels of the selected area and mixes them with the pixels of the defective area. This and this tool have settings that you need to become familiar with. Click on the canvas with the right mouse button:

• Size - brush size
• Hardness - the hardness of the edges. The harder the edges, the sharper the blend border will be.
• Spacing - intervals. You can set brush intervals.

You can only fix the defect on the sled using the Stamp tool:

This tool works in a similar way, with the only difference being that it doesn't blend pixels. To eliminate the seam, use Alt to select the "suitable area" and then paint over the seam with it:

As you can see, using this tool it is convenient to eliminate defects on the clear edges of objects. Thanks to the above methods, get rid of all defects:

Step 3

Now it remains to make the photo a little clearer. To do this, make a duplicate of the main layer (Ctrl + J) and select Filter - Other - High Pass:

In the filter settings, set the value so that only small contours are visible in the preview window:

Click OK. Change the blend mode of this layer to Overlay:

After that, you will notice how the picture has become clearer and more contrast:

This is how you can retouch a photo using simple tricks and tools.

Photographs on paper have the unpleasant property of fading, fading, becoming covered with small cracks and scratches over time. Almost every person in the house has old black-and-white photographs from the family archive, damaged by time. However, they are dear to the heart and can be restored if you use a computer and the appropriate software.

There are many photo recovery methods using modern technologies. Consider one of the methods - restoring a photo using Adobe Photoshop. In any of them, the use of the following tools can be noted: Clone Stamp Tool, Healing Brush Tool and Patch Tool. What you need: A computer with the appropriate software and a scanner to scan images. Here is the simplest and most common way to restore an image:

1. Photo scanning

The photograph must be scanned. Before scanning, do not forget to wipe off fingerprints and old dust from the photo.

In the scanner settings, you need to set the highest resolution - at least 300 - 600 dpi. A lower resolution will not allow you to print the restored photo.

Black and white photographs should be scanned in "color" mode (RGB) rather than black and white because color mode allows more detail to be preserved. Scanning in grayscale mode may result in lower quality and more noise.

2. Image analysis and cropping

In the process of scanning and converting a photograph from damaged paper into digital form, a lot of small cracks, scratches and dust particles appear, which are sometimes completely invisible in the original image. After scanning, it is important to analyze the image in terms of whether it is necessary to remove dust, which parts of the photo require restoration, and which can serve as donors for lost areas.

3. Remove scratches and dust

To remove dust, the Dust&Scratches filter is used, followed by the application of a layer mask and the restoration of areas undamaged by dust. Dust is always more visible in the shadows and, accordingly, it will be much easier to remove it automatically there. When removing dust, work at 100 percent zoom to get a clean, restored photo afterwards that won't leave any scratches or specks of dust that go unnoticed.

To eliminate cracks, you will need to switch to the Lab Color mode, where you can correct the image both in relief and in color. Cracks and scratches are removed from the photo using the Clone Stamp Tool. You can also use the Healing Brush Tool for this purpose. When working with these tools, be especially careful when removing scratches and cracks from faces in a photo.

Hair, clothes, and some other details are often the only areas in an old photograph that can be called clear and detailed. Therefore, when working with them, you should also be extremely careful. If necessary, you can additionally remove bags under the eyes, wrinkles and other imperfections in the photo with the same Clone Stamp Tool and Healing Brush Tool.

4. Restoration of missing sections

Some areas of an old photo may be so damaged that they will have to be restored using other, similar areas in the picture. To restore missing or damaged sections, you need to use the Clone Stamp Tool. Here you only need to select an area in the photo from which you can copy some of the pixels and, thus, restore the damaged area with their help. The cursor pointer is placed on this area, after which you need to click the left mouse button by pressing the Alt key. Next, you need to move the cursor to the damaged area of ​​the photo and click the left mouse button again. You may have to create a new layer to correct every major detail in the photo.

In order to close large damages, it is better to use the Patch Tool, which provides for the creation of a kind of patch with which you can cover the damaged fragment of the image. To restore the symmetrical details of the face, use the Flip Horizontal function from the Transform group to flip the copied fragment horizontally. Then use the Warp command to transform the fragment so that it complements the photo. True, here it must be borne in mind that a person's face is very rarely symmetrical, as a result of which a face restored in this way may look unrealistic. So, you will probably have to perform additional correction and feathering of the restored fragment.

5. Color correction

Finally, download Adobe Photoshop. And the first task is to make black and white color, and again to make the lost color play with the original colors. To do this, just use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + L to call the dialog menu Levels (levels). First, you can use the button Auto (Auto) and look at the finished result of color correction. If the result is not satisfactory, you will have to adjust the tone manually.

Working with levels (Levels), the white and black point sliders will need to be moved to those points in the image where the histogram displays the beginning of areas with dark and light pixels. To increase the contrast and color saturation of the photo, you will also need to use the Match Color menu. Here you can increase the intensity of the color using the Color Intensity slider, while you will need to check the Neutralize box to neutralize the midtones that appear.

6. Minor corrections, sharpening and general photo correction

If the photo has shadowed areas, then they can be removed using the Shadow / Highlight option. To correct dark and light areas, it is necessary to choose the right settings so as not to lose detail in the image and not to “kill” the contrast. To achieve a really high-quality result, it is recommended to use curves (Curves), with the help of which it will be possible to further work out the dark and light areas of the photo image.

To improve the clarity of the photo, use the Unsharp Mask tool. Don't get too hung up on eliminating noise when restoring photos. Grain in old photographs looks quite impressive, adding a peculiar spirit of the time to the image.

Finally, you can try to make the photo more interesting and colorful by additionally adjusting the contrast and color saturation of the image using the Hue / Saturation option, which is called by the Ctrl + U keyboard shortcut.