Do Away with the Damage on Photos Using Adobe Photoshop
Before you begin fixing a photo, it is important to first diagnose the problem. Once you know what is wrong, you will be able to choose the best way to improve the photo. When there are several improvements that need to be made. First, you will need to determine which ones you are going to do first. If you commit to some improvements, you will not be able to go back and do others. Some improvements must be done last because they cannot be changed, while others are strictly done initially to lay a foundation for other improvements.
Do you have a ton of old, memorable but damaged photos that you just cannot bare to part with? The one of your first born the day she came home. Or the dated picture from your high school graduation with the friends you only see once or twice a year. Memories and photos that you want to always have somewhere nearby so you can look at them to remind you of what use to be. We all have those types of photos somewhere. They might be in a chest in the attic of sitting in a frame on your nightstand. Wherever they are, pull them out and bring them back to life by restoring them with Photoshop.
First, you need to remember that restoring a photo will take a while if you want to do a very good job of it. If you are dealing with a severely scratched photo, use the Soft Healing brush and go over each scratch individually until they are all gone. If you are not very patient, you might want to use the Dust and Scratches filter to fix your photo. This will do an adequate job. You can use the Dust and Scratches filter to get rid of the smaller damaged areas.
While you are using the Dust and Scratches filter, be sure to keep the radius at a minimum level and change the threshold to achieve the best balance between what the blurring and the fix will create in the image and the amount of the fix. If you fix blemishes this way, you will soften the image so you will either fix it, or make the photo a little less natural.
If you have to sharpen and crop an image, you will want to do everything else you plan to do before you sharpen it to avoid destroying the image data. If you are cloning elements from an image or restoring any missing pieces and adjusting levels to make the image tone better, do these things first. The Shadow/Highlight tool restores data from over or under exposed photos by pulling details from the shadows or blurred highlights. This should be done early in the restoration process. If your photo is suffering from color damage adjust continuously. Early adjusting will show areas that you will want to adjust later on.
Reducing noise should be done early on so you can discover the noise reduction process and soften that. However, if you are adding noise, you will want to do it later on, after any cloning or blurring has been done. Finally, a number of well-preserved photos, no matter how old they are, can be improved with Photoshop. However, you don’t need to use the Dust and Scratches filter for every picture. Avoid automatically applying these features to every image. There may be much simpler ways to improve your photos. The Dust and Scratches filters can harm your photo by softening it more than you want. So remember, while Photoshop is a magnificent program, every photo can be improved, but all photos do not need extensive work.
