Tips for Old Photo Restoration Step by Step
Who doesn’t have those olden, time-worn pictures containing precious multitudinous memories of either your parent/grandparents or your earliest childhood which you wish to preserve? What happens when these already faded pieces of invaluable moments end up tearing or discolored to the extent that you cannot even recognize the subjects in the photo? If you wish to protect them from their tragic fate of being thrown into the dustbin, Photoshop – with its photo restoration services – is here for you!
Here are a few guidelines to use the photo restoration services in Photoshop and clean all the tear and crease marks, the speckled spots and the discolored splodges.
First of all, scan the photo you wish to work upon and open it in Adobe Photoshop.
Once opened in Adobe Photoshop, the first and foremost step of the photo restoration services is to duplicate the image. This step, which people tend to forgo, is extremely important in case you need to revert to the original image or compare the original with the final look. Press "Ctrl/Cmd+J" and you will have the image on a new layer, with a "Background" layer containing the original image. Then, click on the "Eye" icon to hide the "Background" layer.
Or you can, instead, take the original image layer and select "Convert to Smart Object". This creates a clear plastic wallet on top of the original image layer on which you can work upon.
Old photos tend to have a black border. Not everyone likes it, so you can simply crop it using the crop tool. One thing to take note of is to not tick the "Delete Cropped Pixel" option as the photo restoration services in Photoshop automatically delete the cropped part of the image; if you want to revert your crop, it won’t be possible as it would have been deleted.
There is also an option called "Straighten" tool. It can be used to straighten the image layer if it is slanted.
Photo restoration services remove discoloration, use the "Black and White Adjustment Layer" – slide the red, yellow, blue, green and magenta sliders to adjust the colours accordingly – and the "Brightness and Contrast Adjustment Layer" to further refine the contrasting colours.
These two steps are used particularly for the black and white pictures; for pictures containing hues of, for example, yellow or red, go to "Selective Layer" under the category "Adjustment Layer". From here, you can choose any colours of your choice and adjust them more or less cyan, magenta, yellow or black accordingly.
In order to remove any spots or blemishes, the photo restoration services in Photoshop offer several tools:
The healing tools
Spot healing brush tool – Wherever you need to paint, this tool will sample it on its own, either from the original layer underneath it or from any similar spot on the image layer.
Main healing brush tool – Contrary to the spot healing brush tool, for the main healing brush tool, you need to provide it a sample yourself for it to paint any blotch on the image layer.
This is also used when you need to redraw an entirely missing portion of the image. Sample an area on the image which corresponds to the missing area then select "Windows – Clone Source". It flawlessly clones the sample and paints it on your desired location. You can, of course, also modify the clone according to your requirements.
As much as these healing brushes of the photo restoration services paint over all the smeared patches, what they essentially do is blend the sample colours over the spots. This is, however, not useful when you need to ‘remove’ (paint over) any dark spots from, for example, the border areas of the image. In such a situation, change the "mode" on "spot healing brush tool" from "normal" to "replace". Under "mode: replace", photo restoration services copy and paste the sample color on the undesired spot, not blending it as in under "mode: normal".
Clone stamp tool – Unlike the healing tools, the clone stamp tool is used for finer details. Similar to main healing brush tool, you need to provide the sample yourself in the clone stamp tool. It duplicates the sample entirely so it is especially useful for painting the tear or crease lines. One thing to take note of while using it is to keep an eye out for the duplication of the sample.
Brush tool – It is used when there is nothing to sample from in the image. Sample a color by holding alt or option and paint with brush tool.
For torn pictures scattered into two to three parts, the photo restoration services entails several things to take care of before the removal of blemishes begins.
For their unsmooth edges, go to "Refine Edge" to take care of the shadows around the edges.
Go to "select – inverse" then "Ctrl/Cmd J" to duplicate the image pieces onto a new layer and have a clear blank "Background" layer.
Then use the "Lasso tool" to put each of the torn image pieces on a layer of their own. Grab the "Lasso tool" and make a selection around one image piece then use "Ctrl+X" (cut) then "Shift+Ctrl+V" (paste) to paste it on the new layer.
Use "V" for the move tool to move the image pieces and place them beside each other i.e. moving them in place. You can use the up, down, left and right keys on keyboard to move the image. You can also use "Ctrl/Cmd+T" to rotate an image piece to male it align with the other image pieces.
Where the image pieces align, if there is a white area (the underside of the image), move that layer down.
Choose a background color – white, preferably – so you can actually see what you are doing on the layers.
At the end, compare your final look with the original picture and you will be astonished at the results! With the model aid of the photo restoration services, all the discolored parts would have been cleaned, the unsightly marks would have been gone, the tear and crease lines would have magically disappeared and your picture will be as good as new!