8 replies to this topic

[IanB]

Hi folks, an older family member has sent me a load of old b & w pictures of when he was younger and also of some of his parents etc.  Pictures going back as far as the 40's by the look of them.  He has asked if i can make them look better.  Removing damage etc isn't really a problem but has anyone got any tips that they have used to make the overall quality of older pictures look better, or colourize some maybe.  Will be using Elements 11 mostly and any advice would be greatly appreciated.  Maybe even a link or two to some good tutorials.  I'm open to try anything.

 

Here are some examples of what he has sent me to work with.

 

 

Cheers all,

 

Ian.

[Afterimage]

These are in completely recoverable condition, you'll have no problems fixing these. Mostly I see a little "healing brush" work and color/exposure/contract corrections. Seriously, this will be an easy lesson on how to fix images. You'll have them squared away in no time.

 

Youtube has tons of videos on how to do it if you need a starting point. Adobe even produced a few themselves:

Adobe Help Center

 

For colorization, try this method:

http://www.youtube.c...h?v=r68BN6Mx6es

[IanB]

Cheers Matey, i was confident in getting rid of damage the likes or scratches, folds, blemishes etc but was not sure the best way of actually improving the visual picture quality so these will no doubt be a great help.

 

Thanks again.

 

Ian.

[yauman]

If you have photoshop, here's the standard "trick" to restore it (after fixing all the scratches etc) to looking like the original B&W picture:

1. Duplicate at layer then set the blend mode to Soft Light or Overlay - try see which one looks better.

2..You may have to repeat 1 - ie duplicate again  - do this until the "haze" goes away. At each blend, you can play with the opacity settings.  Looking at the picture, you may need to do at least two iteration of Soft Light or Overlay blends to sharpen and rid the old picture of the hazy cast.

3. Add an adjustment layer for Hue and Saturation.  Pull the Saturation all the way to the left - i.e. desaturate the photo - it will take away the yellowish cast and restore the picture B&W

4. Add a Level adjustment layer and play with the highlights and shadows to get the image to look more even.  

5. When you are happy with the evenness of the image, merge all the layers.

 

If you want to fine tune and is familiar with Channels, you can adjust the Red, Green and Blue channels to balance the look of the image (remember B&W is just a RGB combined.)

 

Hope that helps.

[Adamwesleyo]

I've restored and colored a few older pictures. Just do the color on a different layer. You can get some good results if you mask out each section, color, and soft light or overlay the layer or try some of the others out. 

[IanB]

Thanks for the advice, it will all be tried.

 

Ian.

[Bekkie]

I am interested in restoring images as well. I enjoyed this thread!

[Cymru]

I must agree, this is a very good thread.

[tingeiy]

If you have photoshop, here's the standard "trick" to restore it (after fixing all the scratches etc) to looking like the original B&W picture:

1. Duplicate at layer then set the blend mode to Soft Light or Overlay - try see which one looks better.

2..You may have to repeat 1 - ie duplicate again  - do this until the "haze" goes away. At each blend, you can play with the opacity settings.  Looking at the picture, you may need to do at least two iteration of Soft Light or Overlay blends to sharpen and rid the old picture of the hazy cast.

3. Add an adjustment layer for Hue and Saturation.  Pull the Saturation all the way to the left - i.e. desaturate the photo - it will take away the yellowish cast and restore the picture B&W

4. Add a Level adjustment layer and play with the highlights and shadows to get the image to look more even.  

5. When you are happy with the evenness of the image, merge all the layers.

 

If you want to fine tune and is familiar with Channels, you can adjust the Red, Green and Blue channels to balance the look of the image (remember B&W is just a RGB combined.)

 

Hope that helps.

But as far as I know, if you want to restore old photos, photoshop is the free and effective method to restore old photos,...