Repairing old photos


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Found a box of old photos but quite a lot have been damaged by damp. Is there anyway way that i can improve them myself or will i have to use a specialist.  When i say old some of my mum as a baby 1917.

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Gem I think the ultmate would be to use something like 'Photoshop' to 'repair' them.. but it isn't straightforward and I think you need a Degree in Gobbledegook' to even start with Photoshop.

 

I've used the editing facility in 'Picasa' to do some simple patching up.. such as hiding surface cracks and blemishes in old pics.. but I believe Picasa is no longer supported.

 

I'd start by looking at whatever photo software you have on your computer to see what it can do.

 

Basic systems seem to use a simple process where you pick a 'sample' from an undamaged area of pic and just drop it in to patch a damaged area.

 

So long as you keep the original pic, you can always scan it in again if you make a mess.

 

Others here will know more.

 

Good luck!

 

Col

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Photoshop isn't the most user friendly software on the market, and now you cannot even buy a hard copy unless it's used, has to be downloaded and a monthly charge is now used... I mostly use Corel Paintshop pro these days, it's user friendly and has most if not all the features of Photoshop Pro. The owners bought out the company that made the best photo editing software on the market, Photoimpact, which cost almost double the cost of Photoshop, and was far more user friendly.

Their latest products beat Photoshop hands down at a fraction of the cost AND with hard copy, but you can download their products for a saving over the mailed CD.

I highly recommend Paintshop Pro!!.

If you email a scanned copy of the photos to Catfan, make sure you send the biggest file possible, I'd recommend scanning them all, save them to a CD in BMP format!!!!! JPEG is extremely lossy!! and mail them to Catfan. 

Water damage removes so much data, I usually have to work on the pixel level,which requires maximum data to start with, or it's almost impossible, depending on the scanned photo to repair.

Photo repair is a tedious time consuming job, but well worth the time to restore damaged photos, or bring back faded photos. I've done hundreds of my own,  and a few for clients.

One I repaired dated from WW2 and was a panoramic photo I had to scan in two parts and rejoin on the computer, took me many hours of work, but due to time and cost limitations I couldn't bring the photo 100% up to scratch. Client was happy though and understood the time constraints. The photo was in very poor condition.

 

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I came across a free program called 'GIMP'. I think it stands for graphic image manager program or some such.  I haven't used it much but it does seem to have a lot of the features of Photoshop and you can't beat free.  It does have a steep learning curve though.  I think it is available for. Use with several operating systems.  Just google and download.

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Thank you very much for your suggestions and offers of help.   Will plough thought them and let you know how it goes, my personal computer expert  " son says he is " will understand your information lot better than me.

Gem

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Before you can do anything you will need a good quality scanner, The multifunction printer/scanners in my experience are fine for documents etc. but not really up to the level you need for photographs.

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  • 2 weeks later...

#5.  Loppy son tried your suggestion and has found it to be the best one for him, says thanks saved him a lot of work. I found a photo of my grandparents wedding took it to Jessops thought to fragile for home printing, it cost £20 and worth every penny lovely to see them both so young.    Thanks all of you for your help.

Gem

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  • 1 year later...

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