Photo Restoration Tips

Today, almost everybody uses digital camera. However, there are some who still use film cameras. No matter what kind of camera one uses, it many times happens that the photo was not taken well. There will be problems associated with light, improper setting, lens flare, etc. These are problems which occur when shooting.

Also, there are many problems associated with old photographs like light issues, noise, lens flare problem, color problems or they can be very old, dusty and sometimes yellow. Some of these old photographs are invaluable memory shots. So, what to do? How to repair and restore these photos. Use these tips, and save your precious photos and not discard them.

• Firstly, scan all the old photos you wish to restore. In case, the photos are digital, copy them to a particular folder on your system. These will be the photos you wish to restore.
• Try to categorize the photos by the problems, for example, sub-folder with black and white photos that need to be converted to color, or photos that have a lot of noise, etc.

• Now, it is time to use a powerful photo-editing software. The most popular one remains to be Adobe Photoshop. Learn photoshop easily by following tutorials provided with the software. However, if you don't have the budget for Photoshop then use some free softwares available online.

Some good free software are Picasa and GIMP. But, best way is to use Photoshop as these softwares don't have all the necessary tools to completely restore the photos.

• Now, open the photo in the software and adjust the light setting. Change its brightness and contrast. Make the lighting pleasing to the idea and so that the details can be seen. Also, always remember to keep brightness more than contrast.

• After this color correct the photos. Change the saturation, color, hue, etc. of the photo. Again the goal should be a pleasing looking photo.

• In case, the photo is black and white and you want to convert it to color, then you will need to collect some data regarding the color of the environment and subject present in the photo, if you are not able to acquire the data then use your own imagination.

To convert a black and white image to color, you will need to select large areas of the photos using lasso tool and then fill them with color, and adjust with the shade and transparency of the color. For smaller areas simply use a paintbrush. To do a great job, try to work on higher zoom rates so you can cover pixel to pixel.

• After you are done coloring the photo, it is time to remove the red eye, if any. There are red eye tool which when clicked on the area simply make the eye color normal.

• Once you are satisfied with the overall picture, reduce the noise in the picture. Use a bit of Gaussian blur to make the picture soft and reduce noise. You can also use special noise reduction tool if any.
• Apart from the mentionecd basic changes, software are loaded with many other handy tools.

• There is stamp tool, which can make your complexion look smoother by simply stamping a patch of clear skin on the uneven skin area. However, do a good job. Also, you can reduce lens flare option if you want. Explore the software more to know about special tools of this kind.

• One more thing, if you want to crop the picture so that unwanted edges or bad spots can be removed then go ahead and do so.

This way restore and repair your photos. So, what are you waiting for? Follow the aforementioned simple tips and restore the damaged photos. Also, in future use better equipment and compose the shot well, so that you avoid taking bad photos.