Restoring old B & W photos, is Photoshop the best tool to use?
 

I'm familiar with Photoshop Elements, been using it for years for basic tasks of photo editing. Recently I was given a "job" to restore a bunch of old family photos, some are really poor quality. I tried the basic tools of Elements and it made a big difference. However, I want to really improve/repair/retouch and print them out to acceptable quality. Is Photoshop CS4 the solution. I'm willing to put in the time to learn it. Elements doesn't seem to have enough tools to get the job done. I'm open to all ideas about which program(s) to use.

Thanks,

I've used PS to do some restoration and it works great BUT be prepared, it takes time and patience. Thank goodness for alt,control, Z ;-) I'm using an older version of PS (version 7? I think) and while I'm certainly no expert it does a fine job.

I'm with Don. I'm no expert either, but have managed to pull off pretty good restoration attemps. Photoshop is amazing.

Here's a before and after of my late grandmother as an example.

Specifically, which version of PS are you guys using?

I'm using CS3.

Nice work! I'm debating whether to get CS4 or not, maybe CS3 or older will do, for a much lower cost.

Here's a massive restoration that I've been working on in fits and starts. The original photograph, on the left, was in about 20 pieces. I scanned them separately and then put them together like a jigsaw puzzle in Photoshop. Then I started on the restoration. Note, in particular, the little girl's left arm, and the chair, right pants leg and right forehead of the older boy. This was done in Photoshop CS2, though now I use CS4 which has even better restoration tools.

I'd definitely recommend Photoshop for the ability to achieve technical excellence with your image manipulations. Their 30 day trial versions are also handy.

Another thing to be aware of is the infra-red scanning technologies that come with some scanners. (I have a Microtek ArtixScan F1.) This feature enables an "auto healing" to occur on photos where scratches or other damage is physically present on the surface. This can be a huge time saver for you.

Andrew

I love it! If I didn't see the original, I would've never known you fixed the defects/missing pieces. This gives me hope for some of my photos. The man's and the little boy's faces are gonna be hard work!!! Thanks for posting.

I don't think my scanner has the infrared feature. But it does have a lot of options for fixing up the photos as they're being scanned. I was told to fix everything with PS and bypass all scanner's photo-fixing options. Not sure if that's good advice or not. The only thing I do before scanning is to adjust the Levels using the scanner software.

Any version of Photoshop will do the job, but IMO each version does get better, making the work easier and faster (or shall I say "less tedious?"). If you have a computer that'll handle Vista 64, and the budget to get CS4 Extended, you'll love it. The improved performance and new tools were sure worth it for me.

I've done a lot of restorations via Photoshop, having moved up from Elements a few years ago. Certainly there is always a learning curve but the rewards are many!

Attached is a quick restoration I did for someone I met at the local print shop, she couldn't afford what they were going to charge to have this 40 yr old picture cleaned up and wanted to make copies for her grandkids. I offered to help her out because she seemed so disappointed (she actually asked the guy if they could just color in the missing parts "with a crayon or something")!

Charles, nice work BUT now let's see you do that restoration while running a Steadicam Rig ;-)

This is fun. Nice to think about something other than video once in a while. Here's another sample that worked out well.

Another vote for photoshop. We just had some expensive family photos done, My wife, my two grown up sons and myself - PLUS my oldest's long term girlfriend, who then fell out with him and I've spent a week deleting her from the group photos!

I don't have Vista 64, am using XP Pro with quad core 6600 and 3 GB RAM on my PC. I just bought CS4 Extended for something like $180. Thanks!

I spend nearly every day at work working in Photoshop. It is my opinion that it is the coolest program in the entire world. Yes, even cooler than my Final Cut Pro Suite!

One thing worth mentioning about Photoshop is that it is like an incredibly powerful assortment of tools. There are many ways of creating the same effect in Photoshop, and an individual's workflow and general efficiency will determine favored ways of doing things.

When I was working in the print industry I was routinely called upon to remove people from photos, add people, even restore missing limbs!

We did a bunch of life-size standees of a fictitious boy band for MTV (2Get+Her), and had to make about 40 in 2 days. While working on them, the art director wanted a different pose of one of the figures... problem was, he was standing behind the others in the original photo. I was able to paint in most of his jacket, fake an arm (conveniently putting his hand in the jacket pocket so as to not have to do a hand!) and then I "borrowed" a set of legs from another photo. The art director was very pleased.

Depending on how deep you get into correction and restoration will take you on various learning curves. When you stack levels, curves, and color balance adjustment layers, and selectively paint them to mask their effects, etc. etc. you'll know you're hopelessly lost to the world of Photoshop.

When making composites, the hardest thing to do is make sure the lighting matches in the images to be joined. That is usually the very first tell-tale of a doctored photo!

These days I do more mundane miracles with my company's product photos. Usually when there in an engineering change, I just doctor the existing photo to reflect the change which is usually (but not always!) cheaper than rephotographing the product.

But I have also been known to "make" products in Photoshop when the prototypes are not ready and I have a catalog to get to press! It makes me laugh to see a "photograph" of a product that did not even exist when I made the image of it!

Yes, Photoshop is the coolest program on the planet!

Photoshop Demo
 

Here's a couple of examples of a couple projects.

Last year we thought it would be fun to have the Mona Lisa wearing one of our camera straps.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/members/f...lisa-cover.jpg

The biggest challenge here was getting the strap to disappear somewhat convincingly behind her hair. Even though you can't see it here, I textures the camera strap and pouch to match the cracks and surface imperfections of the original painting. Unfortunately it can't be seen except at high magnification

So this year, we thought we'd continue the theme of classic paintings, this time borrowing from the Sistine Chapel.

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/members/f...log-2009-1.jpg

There was a lot of compositing in this one.
1. The background wall with spotlights shining was created from scratch in Photoshop.
2. The frame was reshaped and proportioned. (see below)
3. The figures were photographed (3 photos), posed according to a mock-up I had done earlier. Then they had to be removed from their backgrounds to be composited together.
In the upper left figure I changed the color of the strap shoulder pad to red to make it "pop" better against the subject's mostly blue clothing.
The vest on one of the girls in the lower right corner was changed to green, again to keep things from being too blue.
4. Obviously the pouch had to be out into God's hand. Then general color toning and correction, shadowing etc. to complete.

Next year I'm thinking of doctoring up Boticelli's The Birth of Venus!

http://www.dvinfo.net/conf/members/f...9-elements.jpg

That's cool! I'm always amazed at the many photos I saw in magazines and websites thaat appear to be original, but later found out, many of the objects were photoshopped. Can you (and anybody else) recommend some specs for a laptop that can run Photoshop easily.

Thanks,

Well, the main thing about Photoshop is that it likes as much RAM as you can throw at it. And of course the faster processor the better, especially with CS4 extended supporting 3D!

But the size and resolution of your images will affect performance as well. If you're only working images for use on the web you won't need as much fire-power as if you're working high-res images for print or for especially wide-format printing.

Another thing is how many layers you may be working in. A lot of my images tend to have many layers and RAM requirements go up accordingly.

Here are the System Requirements from the Adobe website:


Mac OS

* PowerPC® G5 or multicore Intel® processor
* Mac OS X v10.4.11–10.5.4
* 512MB of RAM (1GB recommended)
* 2GB of available hard-disk space for installation; additional free space required during installation (cannot install on a volume that uses a case-sensitive file system or on flash-based storage devices)
* 1,024x768 display (1,280x800 recommended) with 16-bit video card
* Some GPU-accelerated features require graphics support for Shader Model 3.0 and OpenGL 2.0
* DVD-ROM drive
* QuickTime 7.2 software required for multimedia features
* Broadband Internet connection required for online services*


Windows

* 1.8GHz or faster processor
* Microsoft® Windows® XP with Service Pack 2 (Service Pack 3 recommended) or Windows Vista® Home Premium, Business, Ultimate, or Enterprise with Service Pack 1 (certified for 32-bit Windows XP and 32-bit and 64-bit Windows Vista)
* 512MB of RAM (1GB recommended)
* 1GB of available hard-disk space for installation; additional free space required during installation (cannot install on flash-based storage devices)
* 1,024x768 display (1,280x800 recommended) with 16-bit video card
* Some GPU-accelerated features require graphics support for Shader Model 3.0 and OpenGL 2.0
* DVD-ROM drive
* QuickTime 7.2 software required for multimedia features
* Broadband Internet connection required for online services*