Preserved Topic: Restoring an old picture.

I have on OLD picture of my g/f's grandparents that she wants restored, it has a few cracks and such. I dont plan on makin the picture look like new or anything, i just wanna fill in the cracks and make it look whole again. Are there any tips u have or any PROGRAMS i should use to that would make it easier? other than Photoshop i mean.

Thanks

Photoshop is the program you should use. I can't think of any other program that would work as well.

As for how to do it, the cloning tool is the best way to go. There are filers like the "dust and scratches" but I never tought those work well. So, just get the cloning took and start working by hand. Unless there are very big parts missing it is not hard to do. It might be a bit time consuming though.
The only tip I can think of is that if you have big gradiented surfaces, and it end up getting "blotchy" when you try to clone it, it might be easier to set the mode of the clone brush to dissolve.

If the picture is also faded from age, you can use the curves or levels to adjust it.
Good luck!

I agree with ZOX: PhotoShop is it. A couple of other ideas to keep in mind: When selecting "regions" that may be faded, use the "Feather" option under select to make sure that your Levels correction doesn't have a sharp drop off. Also, when using the cloning tool, (what I normally call the "Stamping" tool), make sure your brush type is fairly fuzzy so that your stampings blend with the background once stamped. I would do corrections in the layer above it so that if you make SERIOUS blunders while doing it, you can go back and correct easier. Although it's a little trite, you could use "Despeckle" from the "Filters" menu to get rid of little black puncture dots, though depending on the size and frequency of the dots, this is probably the least usefull suggestion.

Definately keep an eye on your brush type when using the stamping tool, and use "Feather" when making regional corrections. You have to judge how much feathering to use based on your dpi and image size. Have fun!

...and if you want, we would love it if you could post up the original scanned image for us to play with us!

Thanks guys. i never even thoughtof using the clone tool. i dont even think ive ever used it. I've just been copying selections and pasting, then smudging and fading edges to blend.

As for posting the pic. that wouldnt be a good idea. its 100.5mb. i scanned it at the hightest quality setting. I could compress it to .jpg if ya's want. maybe i'll do that......it would still be pretty big though.

well, if you want to post the pic, i'd suggest taking the dpi down to 72 and sizing it less than 1000px tall...whatever that resizes to, i think we could work with it. that'd drop the size of the image down to probably less than a meg or two. but yes, clone it, baby.

(nickname=twItch)(realname=steve)(email=steve@th-inknet.com)(chatname=8520632)(minutiae= whatthefuck)

ighty...im at school right now but as soon as i get home i will.

I have a tutorial for restoring pictures, is in spanish, so i will write only the steps, i hope you like it.

1.- the shot here is to paint between snapshots, so open your scratched photo and do not close until finished, or you´ll loose your original snapshot, and we will nreed it later.

2.- Filter: dust and scratches, Thereshold = 0 and set the radius to erase all the "scars" in the pic. Try to not damage the picture, if you cannot erase them all, leave like that, we will fix it out with the (stamp tool? i dont remember the name...).

3.-Let´s sharp a little bit: filter noise - add noise. Monochromatic and 3 or 4 pixels amount, Gaussian distribution.

4.- Make a snapshot: In the history palette > create snapshot (or take) from: merged layers.

5.- Select beside the new snapshot square, and the history brush will appear, and the select the original snapshot (the upper one selected and the brush in the lower one)


Watch:



6.-Set the history brush to darken blending and opacity to 100% to paint over the lighten scratches.

7.- Set it now to lighten to paint the darkest scratches in the pic.


Hope it works to you.....

Heres the pic....i sized it down CONSIDERABLY, its now a dainty 661k, which is small seeing as how it was 100mb.
http://elgrandespage.homestead.com/files/RESTORe.jpg


Its is big in size though. 800 x 957 pixels

edit= link

[This message has been edited by el_Grande (edited 01-17-2001).]

OK, I have one bit of feedback to add to what everyone else has said. You need to use some artistry to restore this pic, no doubt of it, BUT! Now, I can tell this was a scan of the picture, and we get the texturing of the photo paper big time, it's going to take a miracle to eliminate this. Here's what you can do to get an even better quality original to attempt fixing. What you need to do is TAKE ANOTHER PICTURE OF THIS PICTURE. If you set up another camera a few feet away, give it perfect, beautiful focus, and then set up a series of lights all around it, you can elminate any shadows from the paper texture and just capture the image.NOW you can do all of those things others have spoken of, and really pull the *image* out of the past. Add funky old-fashioned photo paper texture after if you want the realism.

Your pal, -doc-

Yep, what Doc is talking about is what I was doing in High School. If you really wanna restore this phot you are gonna have to get rid of that texture. There is no other way to make this work. Is there a new or newer photo studio in your area? If there is, take this there and ask them if they could take a photo of it so you can try your hand at photo retouching. Be honest tell them what you plan to do. It's a good posibility you could talk your way into a contract job for retouching. And get a solid discount on the price of the new photo.

I have been restoring the scanned photo and its coming out pretty good. After i try printing a copy i'll decide whether or not to take a pic of it and then restore that.

i have a digital camera so takin the pic wont be hard. i guess we'll see what happens.