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Examples of photo restoration

craygc

Member
I did a similar restoration of a scan of an old family photograph for a friend a number of years ago. The amount of effort that went into removing spots and blemishes and rebuilding parts of the image that were missing or blown highlights was well beyond my initial estimates - work on this image was in excess of 70 hours in Photoshop. The actual level of damage in the original scan is not obvious at the size uploaded here.

Restoration.jpg
 

jotloob

Subscriber Member
Question to both "restorers" .
Did you use any special additional software for PS , LR , ON1 or what ever program you use ? ? ?
That would be very interesting to know . Thank you .
 

craygc

Member
Question to both "restorers" .
Did you use any special additional software for PS , LR , ON1 or what ever program you use ? ? ?
That would be very interesting to know . Thank you .
For me (and this was the first time I ever tried this) it was just Photoshop, working at 200% most of the time using the clone tool and healing brush with a Wacom tablet. Just working across the image screen by screen, manually cleaning and fixing. The healing brush is actually quite good at rebuilding small areas by just slowing increasing the selected area from the edges and allowing it to both build up density as well as manage the blending.
 

kennystone

New member
For me (and this was the first time I ever tried this) it was just Photoshop, working at 200% most of the time using the clone tool and healing brush with a Wacom tablet. Just working across the image screen by screen, manually cleaning and fixing. The healing brush is actually quite good at rebuilding small areas by just slowing increasing the selected area from the edges and allowing it to both build up density as well as manage the blending.
Thank you very much for the detailed process description, very meticulous work!:thumbs:
 

LaRty

New member
Besides restoring the old photos I tried also to change the image background to some more modern but let it stay uncolored, for instance, if it is about some family photos, it`s quite interesting to imagine how your granny is sitting in the office. Recently I have been scanning google in search of some new software with wider opportunities, I mean with some advanced automatic tools for photos restoration, retouching and so on, just to be able, for example, to recolor image online very fast if I need to, so I can spend less time doing it by hands because it really takes lots of time
 
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ChrisCampton

New member
What a nice job you made! Brilliant!
Photoshop is too complicated for me, can someone recommend easier software for restoration??
 

Daniel Brown

New member
What a nice job you made! Brilliant!
Photoshop is too complicated for me, can someone recommend easier software for restoration??
Well, I think there are no easy answers because "easier" software is often just easier because it has fewer vital functions and actually makes the process of both restoring and learning slower and less productive. I know it has been a year, but still, I think you can find a lot of useful information about how to do it in this article about how photo restoration work.

They use mainly 2 tools to make restore their photos:
1. Photoshop or its free analog called Photopea
2. Gimp
 
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