Q re Restoring Old Photos

ND
Posted By
Norm Dresner
Feb 19, 2008
Views
291
Replies
3
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Closed
I have an ancient B&W photo to restore. It’s both faded and cracked. Which operation should I do first:
1. Use Healing Brush/Spot Healing to fix cracks
2. Restore gamut and contrast

TIA
Norm
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T
Talker
Feb 20, 2008
On Tue, 19 Feb 2008 21:07:52 GMT, "Norm Dresner" wrote:

I have an ancient B&W photo to restore. It’s both faded and cracked. Which operation should I do first:
1. Use Healing Brush/Spot Healing to fix cracks
2. Restore gamut and contrast

TIA
Norm

Myself, I would do a levels adjustment, then a contrast
adjustment. I save the clone tool for near the end, since making the other adjustments first might bring out more imperfections. I use the clone tool, then if I have trouble matching up some of the shades of gray, I’ll use the healing brush. I never use the healing brush by itself to try and clone out imperfections, it’s always clone tool (rubber stamp) and then the healing brush….but that’s just one way to do this, others will have their preferences.<g>

Talker
G
Greg
Feb 20, 2008
Norm Dresner wrote:
I have an ancient B&W photo to restore. It’s both faded and cracked. Which operation should I do first:
1. Use Healing Brush/Spot Healing to fix cracks
2. Restore gamut and contrast

TIA
Norm

IF the print is faded to brown/yellow, scan it in color, then when you have it in Photoshop, select the blue channel (Ctrl-3). The blue channel sees the yellow/brown better than the red or green channels (ctrl-1 and ctrl-2). Restore color with ctrl-~)

Often the blue channel will remove the necessity for dodging and burning the faded areas completely. If you like the blue channel results, then Image/Mode/Greyscale will convert the image to monochrome. Now is the time to use levels to tweak the tonal rendering, then fix cracks etc with Clone or healing brush, then sharpen lastly.

Colin D.

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ND
Norm Dresner
Feb 20, 2008
"Talker" wrote in message
| On Tue, 19 Feb 2008 21:07:52 GMT, "Norm Dresner" | wrote:
|
| >I have an ancient B&W photo to restore. It’s both faded and cracked. | >Which operation should I do first:
| > 1. Use Healing Brush/Spot Healing to fix cracks | > 2. Restore gamut and contrast
| >
| >TIA
| > Norm
|
| Myself, I would do a levels adjustment, then a contrast | adjustment. I save the clone tool for near the end, since making the | other adjustments first might bring out more imperfections. | [SNIP]

Yeah, in the absence of guidance and being anxious to start, I decided to fix the cracks first and then adjust the image.

It didn’t work to badly, except that the secondary adjustment made some of the healing more obvious than I’d be willing to settle for and I had to go back and clean that up.

Now I know.

Thanks
Norm

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