Breaking down the steps of photo restoration start to finish.
This blog has a huge wealth of photo restoration tips and tricks. Here I help bring them together to guide you through a photo restoration. With a little blog hopping everything need is right here.
Photo Restoration start to finish
The first step would be to acquire the software.
Photoshop software cheap to rent per month
Currently, you can own Photoshop for less than £10 a month on an Adobe monthly plan. see Adobe (dot) com. What I haven’t done is to show you how to use Photoshop. This would no doubt involve another dedicated blog just for that. Apologies to those folks who don’t know-how. There are many short videos on the net showing the basics if you need a crash course.
Scanning your image.
scanning guide flat-bed scanner
Before we start a photo restoration we need to start with a good digital image. This is normally achieved by making a good scan. Scanning is nearly a science on its own and does need to be carried out correctly. Without the best possible image to start with our restoration won’t turn out the best. This 7 step guide to a better scan is a good place to start. Sometimes the image is too big for our scanner and it needs to be scanned in several pieces and stitched back together.
In extreme cases our photo may be so brittle or rolled up it may not be possible to make it flat for scanning. It is possible to flatten an image or unroll an image for restoration. This is a job of patience and skill and should be left to a conservator. There is a process of unrolling an old brittle and stiff photo you could try.
Once we have our great scan in colour, we can set about the restoration.
We first need to Identify what kind of photo it is. First off we should check is the photo an original? If it is not, it may have lost some mid-tones and make our restoration that much harder. If the photo has scratches that need to be mended make sure you restore the cracks in the photo the correct way. Damage can appear in so many forms and each one can be addressed with a dedicated technique.
Identifying the type of damage your photo has
If your photo has a particular kind of damage do search the photo restoration blog for the type appearing on your photo.
Restore your photo
Once you have found what you are looking for there may be several articles to help you. Photos can have missing pieces that need restoring or missing body parts, or be coloured faded. Images can have a flaky surface or have an orange light bleed or film fog that needs fixing, the list is almost endless.
Throughout the blog, you will find videos and articles and full-blown courses on photo restoration. If you are unsure of any techniques take your time to read carefully and if anything is not covered, put it in the comments and I’ll see if I can add the process in or write a new post to cover it.
Once you have finished watching and learning and restoring you’ll need a print.
Printing
My recommendation is a chemical print from a traditional photographic lab. Avoid instant print kiosks as the super-fast, instant prints technology, does not give you such a good image.
The natural grain in the traditional photographic process smooths and blends together the “digitalness” of the image and produces are more realistic photo.
Have fun and if you are unable to get to grips with restoring your own photo please get in touch and email me your image. I can then assess your photo and if it is possible to restore it, I’ll provide a quote.
If you want to find out about prices please see my blog post How much does a photo restoration cost?
