Tips For Retouching and Restoration

[Sandra]

In this thread I invite you to post your favorite tips for restoration and retouching.

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The Smudge tool
The smudge tool is very handy for tidying up artifacts in photos. Dupiicate your layer first then use it lightly and only on the problem areas. I usually use a setting of Strength 50% or lower using various brush sizes depending on the area to be smudged. If the effect is too strong you can decrease the opacity of the duplicated layer to adjust.

[phyllis stewart]

Great thread idea... thanks!

Adjust Levels FIRST.
In any restoration I do, I begin with autolevels, usually faded back as needed. I have found that most restorations are on old photos which have faded from light and/or oxygen. No amount of color tweaking will result in good coloring without adjusting the levels to undo the fading somewhat by adding back the contrast.

If you are working on a color image, you may not like the colors you get with autolevels, so you have several options, one of which is to desaturate a dupe and run autolevels on THAT layer set to luminosity mode. Or, of course, you could play with levels or curves if you are good at that. But you don't need a lot of PS expertise to use autolevels, and it's a good starting step in any case.

[Sandra]

Dodging and Burning
Lightly dodging and burning the eyes, nose, mouth and jaw line can help with the allusion of sharpening an image.

[Sandra]

Large View
I always enlarge my view of an image before I regard it as done. I maganfy it to atleast 200% and check out every inch of the photo. This way any minor imperfections are huge and stand out. I correct the probelms while in 200% view with the knowledge that if it looks good at 200% it will look great when viewed at 100%.

[Tyeise]

I actually tend to do my corrections at 200% large view. It's easier to see that way.

[Sandra]

I only use the 200% for the final check because I correct at 400% normally. Because at 400% it gets a little too large and I lose the oveall picture.

[Sandra]

a tip I recently came across for retouching.
the first thing I do is duplicate the bg layer but the next is the new tip.

run Unsharp mask it the following settings
20% 60 pixels 0 threshold
this give your photo a clarity, kind of lifts any haze on the photo.
Try it and see if you get an improvement.

[Sandra]

If you have a really bad photo to restore. One that's hard to see what is actually there, it's often a help to duplicated the original background layer and invert. This gives you a negative of the original and it's surprising how much more you can often see when looking at the negative. I don't do any work on the inverted layer but usually keep this layer as a reference while I'm restoring some of the "horror" photos I seem to attract.

[phyllis stewart]

Great tip, Sandra... thanks!

[Sandra]

While working on my curent "horror" restoration I used the invert method as above but this time as I was working with black and white photos I did a lot of dodging and burning on the inverted layer. and later when I had done enough I inverted again to get back to the postative. It worked quite well and I will use it again if the circumstances are right.

[Sandra]

When working on restorations I usually work on at least 400% magnification, sometimes more if needed. because of the magnification it's easy to lose track of where I am in an image so I always have the navigator menu open as it helps to keep me track.

[Sandra]

Some old black and white photos are badly discoloured. Don't be to quick to convert them back to black and white before you restore them. Sometimes leaving the discolouration can help you see the details better. I usually try to work with the photo exactly how it's scanned for most of the restoration then do the conversion to black and white as one of the last steps.

[phyllis stewart]

Sandra, thanks for the tip. And it's a good idea to look at the print in each color channel. If there is some color in the print, often one channel will look clearer than another.

[rgalka]

working in color also allows you to remove colored stains and colored ink writing.

Bob

[Sandra]

Display The Same Image In Two Windows
instead of zooming in and out on your image you can have the same image open in two windows.
With an open image selected choose Window> Arrange> New Window (the original file name will be listed). The same image will now appear in a new second window.
Keep one window set at 100% to see your effects, and work in the second window.

[Sandra]

Here a tip from Tye about smudging
original post : http://www.innographx.com/forum/viewtop ... 623#113623

I found something out working on this one, and I haven't known where to post it.

When I started working on it, I started with smudging out the worst of the cracks. But my smudge tool didn't work very well at all. Instead of using a setting of 65-70, I found myself using 90 - 100 and having less control. I couldn't figure out what was wrong, even restarted the computer and program to see if that would help.

Don't remember why I checked, but it turned out the original was set at 256 colors, not a full spectrum grayscale. Once I increased the number of colors, I was finally able to smudge better and fix the image.

Thanks Tye good tip.

[jean]

thanks for sharing all this wonderful info Sandra , Phyllis , Tyeise and rgalka. It will be much appreciated when I get to working on some old photos for my genealogy quest

[Sandra]

I discovered this a while ago and have meant to share it for some time.

To add some light to a dark photo duplicate the layer and change the blending mode to screen. You can mask out areas you don't want lightened or even duplicate the screen layer to add even more light.
Here is an example of adding some light the easy way.

[rgalka]

Sandra..

Yes that's a good one to remember.. the opposite will work as well...
If you have an over exposed photo duplicate the layer and change the blend mode to multiply. For stronger effects you can make copies of the new layer until you get the effect you want.

Light images also respond well to overlay and hardlight.

bob

[phyllis stewart]

There is so much you can do with light, and these modes are great starters, sometimes even all you need. Thanks for posting this tip here, Sandra.

Remember this thread, everyone, if YOU have a tip we haven't yet posted.
Thanks.

[PBru]

While working on my curent "horror" restoration I used the invert method as above but this time as I was working with black and white photos I did a lot of dodging and burning on the inverted layer. and later when I had done enough I inverted again to get back to the postative. It worked quite well and I will use it again if the circumstances are right.

one trick I learned from my teacher a long time ago when I was learning to draw.

when you are retouching (drawing) something and find it look strange but you can not find why, turn the photo (drawing) upside-down. usually, you will see immediately what's wrong.

this works very well with wrong proportions in human beings.

Pierre

[Sandra]

That's a good tip thank you Pierre

[Sandra]

Until recently when I scanned a photo for restoration I didn't use any of the scanner's settings, I had read once that the "experts" did it that way. My scans were an exact copy of the photo and I did all adjustments in photoshop. After reading an article about scanning and restoration I started experimenting with the scanners adjustments and have found that it's better to get as much out of the photo at the scanning as possible. It makes the work in photoshop a litle easier and the result can be better. So my hint is use your scanner to your advantage.

[rgalka]

Well scanning for restoration is one of those "it depends" kinda things. At least for me.

It depends on the type and amount of "damage" there is. You can't control "where" the dust and scratches are removed like you can with the "healing" tools in Photoshop. And sometimes you just don't want to "soften" everything everywhere. Or sharpen everything everwhere.

It depends on the amount of color correction that you or your client wants. For simple color casts, sure the scanner can do that, but then again it "depends" on how fussy you are.

And of course it depends on the quality of your scanner and scanning software. If you are provided with good adjustment tools in your scanner software with a quality preview of what you are doing then yes by all means.

I do agree that if your scanner comes with "Digital ICE" use it. Especially if you are scanning slides.

If your image has bright highlights and dark shadows, then you might want to make some adjustments in the scanner so that you don't blow out the highlights and/or bring out the details in the shadows. And sometimes you can't have both or one is more important than the other and you can sacrifice some shadow detail for improved highlights... or the other way around.

So... like most things in real life and digital life "it depends".

Bob

[Sandra]

Yes I do agree it does depend on the image but all I'm really saying is try these things out. I never use dust removal in the scanner for example. I should have explained that, I mainly use things like the shadow and highlight and contrast adjustments.

And of course it depends on the quality of your scanner and scanning software. If you are provided with good adjustment tools in your scanner software with a quality preview of what you are doing then yes by all means.

If you're going to do a large number restorations a good quality scanner is essential.

[Sandra]

Working on restorations I have found the smudge brush very useful for smoothing out skin and other areas of a photo, I usually do a seperate smudge layer for each area, such as the face ect, then lower the opacity to blend the smudge layer in. It's great for reducing artifacts ect from a bad scan. (sometimes my customers send me their own scans, therefore I don't have any control of how the image is scanned)

[rgalka]

Yes the smudge is a very useful tool...
Something that I use for "smoothing" out areas like the face and skin is a technique I found somewhere on the "innernet"

make a duplicate layer of your image...
Then blur this image by an amount that gives you the effect you want (usually quite a bit).. for example for the face blur by an amount that give you a nice smooth cheek area.. don't worry about any "detail" area like the eyes, lips etc.. they will probably be gone.
Now make another copy of your original layer and place it on top of the blurred layer... and add a layer mask... it should be white.
Now with a soft low opacity brush loaded with black start painting on the mask of the top image to expose the blurred image below it. Just paint on the areas where you want to "lose" some of the detail, like the cheeks, forehead etc...

You can use this to reduce wrinkles

You'll have to practice with different brushes and opacities, but it can be very effective on some images.

bob

[Sandra]

Thanks Bob, yes I've used that technique quite a bit too, it's quite useful. In Photoshop there is always more than one way to do things.

[phyllis stewart]

Bob, thanks for sharing this great tip. I've always used the more time consuming smudge then lower opacity method, but I will be sure to try this one.

[Sandra]

This might be an obvious tip but sometimes it helps to remind people. Try to name your layers, this is particularly handy when you are working on a photo with multiple subjects. I tend to use a new layer for each important change I make to a photo, this way I can go back and rework or delete the change without disturbing other changes. When there is only one subject in the photo it's fine but when there are multiple subjects it makes it easier to find which layer needs more work when the layers are named.