Enhancing JPG images of old photos

K
Posted By
Kevin
Dec 29, 2006
Views
406
Replies
2
Status
Closed
I have a collection of JPG images, scanned from very old photographs of family members from a family reunion. I don’t have access to the original photos, but some of them are over 100 years old. They are very faded, yellowed and low contrast.

I am not experienced at Photoshop, but I’d like to use Photoshop CS2 to enhance these images. I’ve found several tools in photoshop that make a dramatic difference in many images, mainly converting to Gray Scale, Auto Levels, Equalize, and seemingly less useful, Auto Contrast.

Does anyone have suggestions about what order I should try these tools, or any other Photoshop tools I should try to use? I have read that editing JPG images degrades them. How many edits can I make before losing information in the image? Are there any sites on the web that discuss procedures for enhancing old images like these?

Thanks! Kevin

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T
Talker
Dec 29, 2006
On Thu, 28 Dec 2006 17:30:09 -0700, "Kevin"
wrote:

I have a collection of JPG images, scanned from very old photographs of family members from a family reunion. I don’t have access to the original photos, but some of them are over 100 years old. They are very faded, yellowed and low contrast.

I am not experienced at Photoshop, but I’d like to use Photoshop CS2 to enhance these images. I’ve found several tools in photoshop that make a dramatic difference in many images, mainly converting to Gray Scale, Auto Levels, Equalize, and seemingly less useful, Auto Contrast.
Does anyone have suggestions about what order I should try these tools, or any other Photoshop tools I should try to use? I have read that editing JPG images degrades them. How many edits can I make before losing information in the image? Are there any sites on the web that discuss procedures for enhancing old images like these?

Thanks! Kevin

If you continue using the jpeg format, each save results in some loss of information. What I do is to save the picture as a TIFF or PSD format when I first obtain the image, that way there is no loss in quality.
I assume these old photos are black and white photos, correct? If you use the Auto Levels function, you most likely are getting good results, but this is not a cure-all. Maybe you could post a picture so that we can see what type of problems you are up against. Each photo presents it’s own problems, and each problem needs to be addressed separately, so posting one would help us see what you are up against.

Talker
K
Kevin
Dec 29, 2006
Thanks,

I tried to attach a file as an example, but it didn’t post. Is it possible to attach binary files to posts in this newsgroup?

Kevin

"Talker" wrote in message
On Thu, 28 Dec 2006 17:30:09 -0700, "Kevin"
wrote:

I have a collection of JPG images, scanned from very old photographs of family members from a family reunion. I don’t have access to the original photos, but some of them are over 100 years old. They are very faded, yellowed and low contrast.

I am not experienced at Photoshop, but I’d like to use Photoshop CS2 to enhance these images. I’ve found several tools in photoshop that make a dramatic difference in many images, mainly converting to Gray Scale, Auto Levels, Equalize, and seemingly less useful, Auto Contrast.
Does anyone have suggestions about what order I should try these tools, or any other Photoshop tools I should try to use? I have read that editing JPG
images degrades them. How many edits can I make before losing information in
the image? Are there any sites on the web that discuss procedures for enhancing old images like these?

Thanks! Kevin

If you continue using the jpeg format, each save results in some loss of information. What I do is to save the picture as a TIFF or PSD format when I first obtain the image, that way there is no loss in quality.
I assume these old photos are black and white photos, correct? If you use the Auto Levels function, you most likely are getting good results, but this is not a cure-all. Maybe you could post a picture so that we can see what type of problems you are up against. Each photo presents it’s own problems, and each problem needs to be addressed separately, so posting one would help us see what you are up against.

Talker

MacBook Pro 16” Mockups 🔥

– in 4 materials (clay versions included)

– 12 scenes

– 48 MacBook Pro 16″ mockups

– 6000 x 4500 px

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