Old photographs are more prone to discolour or fade because of the paper and pro- cesses of the day. Unlike todays standards they werenʼt made to last as long. As the paper oxidizes and reacts with other paper and cardboard around it the images seem to discolour, giving them a sepia tone or an ugly yellow or green colour.
An example of such an image is shown below. A quick restoration in desaturating the image, repairing the fold line and adding a slight sepia tone to give it an old look has restored the image giving it a much more pleasant look.
Scanning Photos
When scanning, scan the image more than once at different angles, as some cracks, tears or stains can be not as noticeable on certain angles. Especially if the only print you have is one that has been previously scanned and printed and has scanner or printer marks across the image. Such as the image below, which shows the same image scanned two different ways. The image on the left has been scanned verti- cally whereas the image on the right has been scanned horizontally. It would be a lot easier to eliminate the lines in the left image. A mild blur would make them less prominent and almost indistinguishable.
Walk Through Repair
Here is an image which is badly damaged, discoloured, peeling, and has missing content. Firstly, crop the unwanted border out which will eliminate a fair bit of dam- age (a border can be added later) and straighten the image if needed. Change the image to black and white. This will discard a lot of the discolour we can see, this dramatically makes a difference in a lot of damaged images.
Changing to Black and White
The easiest way to convert an image to black and white is to change the mode to greyscale, however this discards important information and gives you no control. There are many other ways. Try looking at the different colour channels and choose which one has the least damage. Sometimes the majority of damage is in one channel, eliminating the unwanted channels leaves us with a much less complicated im- age.
In the case of this image the red channel seemed to have the least amount of dam- age, therefore select the red channel and convert to greyscale ignoring the other channels. After this is done correct the exposure in levels and then change the image back to RGB mode.
Select red channel, image > mode > greyscale
Eliminating small dust spots
Next add a slight Gaussian blur to the image on a new layer (so you can go back easily if needed). This eliminates the small dust spots and damage on the image. Be watchful as not to blur the image too far. Concentrate on important areas such as the face. Although if need be these important features can be brought back by selecting and only applying the blur to the background or erasing the filter on important areas.
Filter > blur > Gaussian blur
Next select the part of the image that has teared and moved and use the free transform tool to move back into place, lining up to the rest of the image.
Generating a Pattern
For constant areas, generating a pattern is useful and time saving. This method can be used on the letters on the main sign.
Select an area that is not damaged or clone an area to be selected, filter > pattern maker > generate, save pattern, cancel, deselect selection
Now you can use the saved pattern with the pattern stamp tool (under clone stamp
tool) or the healing brush (selecting pattern rather than sample) to paint the pattern
onto the image. Select the letters in the sign and then paint the pattern on with the
pattern stamp tool.
Use this method to get rid of most of the damage in the background sign by choosing an undamaged area of the sign and generated a pattern, then select the sign area (with a 3px feather) and add a new pattern fill layer to the area at 200%, so the pattern isnʼt as noticeable.
layer > new fill layer > pattern
Next rasterize the fill layer which makes it uneditable as a fi ll but now parts of the layer can be brought back to bring back detail.
right click fill layer > rasterize layer
Bringing back detail
On the background copy clone the line so it is neat and uniform. Then on the fi ll layer with a 13px brush, erase the area with the line and also the shadow of the boys head and the bottom of the sign where it is darker and in shadow. (These areas arenʼt as damaged as the other parts of the sign so will still blend in if left untouched.) Lower the opacity of the fill layer so you can see where the line is and what you are bringing back.
Missing content
This can be the most difficult part of the image to fix up (replacing the missing con- tent). It is only a small unimportant area in the background so doesnʼt need too much time spent on it. Copying and pasting a good area of the image (or another existing image) would be ideal, however if there isnʼt really any suitable part of the image which correspond with the colour and texture and other images also donʼt match, clone what little information is present over the white missing area, then select the whole area and add a fill layer of dark grey. Then decrease the opacity to show the texture underneath. An opaque darker grey can be painted to the bottom of the selection to make the shadows.
layer > new fill layer > solid colour
Healing Brush and Clone Tool
These are the tools that seem to be most used in restoration of old scratched and damaged photographs. They are different tools, however can be used together effec- tively to remove unwanted areas on an image. The Clone stamp tool simply duplicates the area sampled whereas the healing brush merges the sampled area and the new area leaving the texture of both parts. It has been recommended to use a soft edge brush for the clone tool (obviously to stop hard edges on an area) and a hard edge brush for the healing brush as it spreads itʼs edges already, therefore selecting the edges of the area you want to heal will stop it bleeding into each other. Resample the area you are taking from as not to get too much of an noticeable pattern is also recommended. Both tools together can be used for getting rid of small spots on larger areas such as the wall on the right in the image and most of the scratches on the shirt and face. Touch up the remainder of the image using these tools.
Changing to Sepia
Old photographs have a sepia colour because of there age. Originally they where taken in full black and white, therefore the true colour of this image is simply black and white. This image looks great in black and white however when restoring some photos, adding a slight sepia tone gives it an old look without overriding the rest of the image.
Make a new adjustment layer, with colourise selected, set Hue to around 30 (a light brownish red) and saturation to about 15.
OR use the preset action, actions > image effects > sepia toning (layer) > play
The Final Image
References
Eismann, K, 2004, Photoshop restoration and retouching, 2nd edn, New Riders, Boston
Farwell, J, Smart Computing, Digital Camera tips and How-to, Restore old photographs:
breathe new life into damaged and aged images, Nov 2001, Vol 7, issue 11, pp 59-62 in print
issue, home page
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