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Restoring Old Photos with Photoshop

By: David Peters

Many people find that the pictures of years gone by need restoration to preserve the memories they hold. The fact is that many photos become damaged through the passing of time. The color may fade, the image may blur and the picture may even suffer from marks and scratches. With the help of the Photoshop program, these problems can be a thing of the past. Technology has enabled Photoshop to provide a solution to your photo restoration needs.

The person may use the Elements in Photoshop, which are Dust and Scratch Filter to remove the marks, scratches and blots in the photo. The Dust and Scratches Filter is located on the Menu Bar and click on the Filter Tab. A drop down will list elements and then he can choose the Noise tab and select on the Dust and Scratches.

Once Dust and Scratches is selected, a window will pop up holding two control sliders. The first slider is for the Radius and the second is for the Threshold. If the preview box is checked, there will be another window visible. This window will show the main options to be used in treating the picture.

The Radius slider may do away with the scratches through adjustments. Please take note that overdoing this process may result in the edges blurring. Should this happen, adjust the Threshold slider to raise the clarity of details and make the picture crisper with the scratches vanishing. Be careful though not to adjust either slider too far or it may result in blotches on the photo.

Selecting the whole photo will not diffuse these marks when going to remove them. The alternative is to choose only the part where the scratches are to be found. You may use the Lasso to do this.

You can feather the edges of the selected area treated so that the correction and the fact that a portion of the photo has been altered will not be apparent in the overall photo. Do this by clicking on the Feather option and choose the Scratch and Dust Filter again. Repeat the process of adjusting the Radius and Threshold sliders another time to achieve the texture desired and eliminate the scratches.

If there are still visible marks on the other parts of the picture, he can do the technique again by selecting the areas he would like to adjust. To finish the process and make the picture presentable, he can crop the image enough to remove the cracks and torn edges of the picture. The canvas may be use to equally crop the image.

You can insert drama into the picture by adding a drop shadow to it. This will make the picture seem as if it has been lifted off the page. The color may also be removed using the controls Shift+Ctrl+U. You can then add color by adding a small amount of Sepia using the Hue or Saturation tab. The contrast may be balanced using the Levels option.

These are easy steps toward your photo restoration solution. Photoshop offers a user friendly program that packs quite a punch against scratches and marks that could otherwise ruin your treasured keepsakes. Now you have the means to restore these photos for display in albums or picture frames for everyone to enjoy.

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