Photo Restoration Blog

Sometimes images are too big to scan in one piece especially the very long panorama photos that can reach well over 30 inches and bigger than 50 inches sometimes!

long panorama school photo

What can you do? You can scan this type of image in pieces and then use PhotoShop to stitch them back together.  I will use and example of a photo around 56 inches long of some windmills. It was scanned in five separate sections with an overlap or around 25% per photo and with all your scanners auto exposure setting turned off. This is to ensure that all the separate scans are exactly the same. If you leave your scanner to auto correct each one then they will all end up with slightly different tones and contrast which wont match well when photoshop comes to stitch them together. Once your image is scanned save the files off to a folder called panorama or something useful to you.

Below is the place to find the photo merge or stitch menu to start the photo stitching process once we have our scans saved.

Finding the "photomerge" option in photoshop for stitching large photos together

Next, browse to where we saved the images.

Pointing the photo merge where to open the separate scans ready for stitching

Select the “Auto” option from the radio buttons and select “blend images together” from the check box below the list of files you browsed for just now. Then select OK.

panorama layers once stitched

In the finished result above after PhotoShop has finished stitching the layers, each one will be on a separate layer allowing you to fine tune them in case the stitch was not 100% accurate.

You can see here that I have switched off one of the layers so you can see how photoshop has blended the image. Its done in a nice, seemingly random fashion which is the best blend route and so that it cannot be seen when you zoom in and inspect it. Which is of course the way we want it, totally invisible!

There are not many occasions when it gets it wrong. I have had 2 or 3 instances when stitching school photos with many people together that two or more heads get replicated. Its very rare but can be corrected by manually painting over the masks on the layers. To do this you click on the black mask of the layer that wasn’t blended properly and paint with black or white soft brush, to add or remove the offending or misaligned part of the image.

To see this image restored, see can panorama images be restored or to see another example of stitching images try the post on flaked emulsion on large images

Photo restoration can encompass a wide range of photo retouching tasks. I find myself performing all kinds of tweaks to images that aren’t restoration at all. For example removing people from a photo or adding them in, manufacturing a background or slimming someone down, or adding a new sky.  It is these tasks that fit into the photo retouching or manipulation category.

Photo retouching for me is about isolating objects and retouching skin or retouching models, cleaning up creases in clothes and making the whole image scan better. This is very much like the “polish” on the final image. The photographer would have already thought about the way the lines flow around the image and where your eye ends up, hopefully right where the product or action is happening. Photo retouching would be to clean up this path the eye travels so there is a smooth path to the selling point of the image. Small glints of light catching untidily on metal or plastic, skin or props can be cleaned away, shadows that fall too heavily or hide details can be corrected and slowly the image becomes a work of two artists, the photographer and the photo retoucher.

Photo retouching can also encompass reducing grain or cutting out objects, compositing together for an advertising image. The photo restoration artist may find their skills being put to the test in all aspects of digital wizardry and photo retouching will be just one of them.

In a photo retouch of a studio shot, model photo you may have to, retouch and even out skin tone, trim down some curves, remove tattoos, ear rings or jewellery, smooth clothes or hem lines or hair lines, remove stray hairs, sculpt wonky eye brows , even out teeth, apply makeup, highlight hair, change skin colour, in some case lengthen legs or change the colour of clothing or hair. Others may be to add moles or change eye colour, texture or high lights. If you can think it most likely it has been done.

Next time when you see a photo and say its “had some photo retouching done on that” like it was simple and people do it all the time and anyone with a computer can do that. It is partly true, many people with computers and a photo manipulation package can edit a photo. The difference with the professionals it is the quality of the work and how it is carried out and the meticulous attention to detail that photo retouching experts put  into their work that make them stand out from the many that simply use the clone tool to swap their head onto the body of a celebrity.

Hello all

I have been working very hard on a new photo retouching site to show the commerical side of image-restore’s skill set. The new site is  The Photo Retoucher. The main site is up and running but I am adding more content as I go. My main focus is to keep strong pieces of work in the folio and appeal to commercial, magazines, fashion models and agencies. I hope you stop by and take a look. Some of you may have seen some of the peices from previous posts from plxeyes or other photo retouching posts.

Here is a snap shot of the site

Photo retouching and image retouching for commercial, magazines, fashion models and agencies

thanks for stopping by The Photo Retoucher.

The original cast of Jabas in 1987

Hello all, I have just had an email giving me the go ahead to post this image that was shown on Welsh TV.

The photo was taken back in 1987 and is of a group of actors who took part in a very popular long-running series called ‘Jabas’. The photo was used as part of the series ‘Lle Aeth Pawb?’ (‘Where Are They Now?’ ) for S4C- which brings back a group of people photographed together at one point of time in the past and reunites them in the very same place years later, telling the stories of  the individuals in the intervening years.

The only photo that the production company had was an old black and white but very good quality and needed it had colouring. With some reference material I was able to hand colour it in keeping with the original wardrobe. I added the colour stack so you can see how many layers were used. Some set to “colour” others set to “overlay” “vivid light” , “colour burn”, “softlight” and “multiply”

Hand coloured image of Jabas

It was screened on Tuesday 11 May, 20:25 welsh TV channel S4C

I would like to credit the production company (Cwmni Da), the original photographer (Gerallt Llewelyn) and the production ‘Lle Aeth Pawb?’ which featured the photo.

You can see the image here although I am not sure if the link will remain live for long!

Screen grab from the Welsh TV page S4C Image-Restores hand coloured image

Image-restore on TV who’d of thought!

I have just launched a new service, wedding retouching at weddingretouching.co.uk a retouching service for wedding photographers. At Wedding Retouching we can recompose your photo, remove unwanted shadows and confetti or even people. Combine two or more photos together to create that moment you missed, or create a sense of mood or tranquillity. We can remove creases from clothes and colour black and white photos and turn images into silhouettes and more.

Wedding retouching services at weddingretouching.co.uk

Still the same excellent photo retouching you get from image-restore.co.uk but now dedicated to wedding retouching.

Hi all I just though I would share this one with you. Its a relatively simple photo restore with a retouch and then a recolour. It went very well. The hand colouring was done on separate layers per colour and then and set to a mixture of colour overlay modes, mostly “colour” but some to “soft light” and others to “colour burn.” If you haven’t picked up what this jargon is by now then dig around in the blog or post a message here with any specific question.

Retouch a portrait and hand colour

Photo retouch and hand colour closeup