How do improve the quality of old photographs? — OZONE Asylum, home of the Mad Scientists

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How do improve the quality of old photographs?

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Your Text: Insert Slimies » Insert UBB Code » Close Last Tag \| All Tags UBB Help	Photoshop makes a variety of tools available to you--like curves, levels, dodge, burn, etc.--for adjusting old photographs and the resources below will help you get a start on this kind of topic. Here is a little advice from Ben Willmore at www.digitalmastery.com: [quote]If you ever find a scratch on your image, make a generic selection of that area and apply one of the following filters: For a scratch that is darker than its surroundings, try Filter>Other>Maximum (this sometimes also works for stubble on someone's face). For one that is brighter than its surroundings, try Filter>Other>Minimum. If you have any specks on your image, first try Filter>Noise>Despeckle. It's that's not aggressive enough, then try Filter>Noise>Median. If you feel like using the Dust and Scratches Filter, then start with the Radius and Threshold settings at their lowest settings. The general idea is to increase the Radius until you find the lowest setting that will rid your image of the dust or scratches. But since that makes you're whole image look blurry, you'll want to bring the Threshold setting way up and then slowly lower it until you find the highest setting that still gets rid of the dust and scratches in your image. The only problem is that this filter has the nasty tendency of thinking that eyelashes and other important content are scratches. So, right after you apply that filter, go back with the History brush (it's right below the paintbrush tool) and paint back any important detail that Dust and Scratches screwed up. If the Dodge and Burn tools don't quite work the way you'd like them to, then try this instead: Create a new layer, change the pop-up menu at the top of the Layers palette from normal to Color Dodge or Color Burn and then paint with a shade of gray. Color Dodge will brighten your image, while Color Burn will darken it. If you ever encounter a color moire pattern when scanning patterned fabrics, try choosing Filter>Blur>Gaussian Blur and use a setting high enough to blend the majority of the moire pattern into the image (don't worry if the image looks overly blurry). Then, to get that to just affect the colors, choose Edit>Fade Gaussian Blur and set the pop-up menu to Color. Since the majority of the detail is held in the brightness of the image, that should make the moire blend in while preserving most of the detail. If there are still a few areas where the moire shows up, then grab the Paintbrush tool and set its blending mode to color. Then, Option-click (Mac), or Alt-click (Win) on an area that does not contain the moire pattern and is representative of what the area with the moire should look like and then paint over the moire pattern. If the moire is more of a brightness change instead of a color one, then you'd have to go through a more involved process that includes copying a channel, adjusting it, and then turning that into a selection and using it to adjust your image. But that's something I'd cover in my new CD series, if someone were to send me a good example image (hint hint... check out www.digitalmastery.com/submit for details). Finally, if you ever select an area and blur it to make it look out of focus, you might want to take steps to insure that that area doesn't look posterized when you print it. I usually just choose Filter>Noise>Add Noise, set the Amount to 3, the Distribute to Gaussian and turn on the Monochromatic checkbox. The most important setting is the amount, the other two do rather subtle things when you have the amount set that low, so don't stress if you don't remember every setting that I use.[/quote] ------------------------------ Relevant threads: [url=http://www.ozoneasylum.com/Archives/Archive-000004/HTML/20010223-3-000843.html]Restoring an old picture.[/url] [url=http://www.ozoneasylum.com/Archives/Archive-000004/HTML/20010223-3-000884.html]Restoring an old picture II [/url] [url=http://www.ozoneasylum.com/Archives/Archive-000004/HTML/20020203-3-001913.html]old photo retouching[/url] [url=http://www.ozoneasylum.com/Archives/Archive-000004/HTML/20020427-3-002171.html]REALLY old damaged picture (any advice?)[/url] [url=http://www.ozoneasylum.com/Forum3/HTML/003442.html]Help repair an old family photo[/url] ------------------------------ Relevant links: [url=http://www.espressographics.com/text/restoring.html]Restoring Old B&W Photos[/url] - an impressive 5 page tutorial dealing with various aspects involved in restoring photos. [url=http://www.espressographics.com/text/washedout.html]Fixing Washed-Out Images[/url] [url=http://www.retouchpro.com]RetouchPro[/url] - a great site with lots of photo retouching tips and tricks and an active forum. _______________________ [internallink=4626]Emperor[/internallink] [small][i](Added by: [url=http://www.ozoneasylum.com/cgi-bin/ubbmisc.cgi?action=getbio&UserName=Emperor]Emperor [/url] on Wed 20-Nov-2002)[/i][/small] [small][i](Edited by: [url=http://www.ozoneasylum.com/cgi-bin/ubbmisc.cgi?action=getbio&UserName=Emperor]Emperor [/url] on Wed 20-Nov-2002)[/i][/small] [small][i](Edited by: [url=http://www.ozoneasylum.com/cgi-bin/ubbmisc.cgi?action=getbio&UserName=Michael]Michael [/url] on Sun 19-Jan-2003)[/i][/small] [small][i](Edited by: [url=http://www.ozoneasylum.com/cgi-bin/ubbmisc.cgi?action=getbio&UserName=The+Spelling+Police]The Spelling Police [/url] on Tue 21-Jan-2003)[/i][/small] [small][i](Edited by: [url=http://www.ozoneasylum.com/cgi-bin/ubbmisc.cgi?action=getbio&UserName=Michael]Michael [/url] on Sat 05-Apr-2003)[/i][/small] [small][i](Edited by: [url=http://www.ozoneasylum.com/cgi-bin/ubbmisc.cgi?action=getbio&UserName=Emperor]Emperor [/url] on Tue 13-May-2003)[/i][/small] [small](Edited by [url=http://www.ozoneasylum.com/user/2340]SPyX[/url] on 11-22-2005 04:02)[/small] Loading...
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