Do No Harm...Photo Restoration Hints Part One

Understanding photo restoration is where we start.  Since we are scanning old pictures, make sure to wear clean cotton gloves so as not to add any oils or dirt to the picture.  It is important to assure the customer that you are going to take good care of their precious item and either scan it right there in front of them or make sure you have a supply of clear plastic envelopes that can be secured with a string wrap tie.

The thing I try to remember the most is:  do no harm.  OK, I am not a doctor but it is really easy to
overdo a picture restoration to the point that it looks toooooo good for the time period.  Remember to duplicate the color if there is sepia toning...unless the customer specifically asks you to return it to black and white.  Remember to use the black and white setting in PhotoShop.  Reducing the color saturation doesn't give you the benefit of working with the "colors" in the black and white...more on this later...sometimes a little bit of imperfection is perfect.

If you scan at 300 dpi, you will have enough data to work with in most situations. Sometimes the damage is so severe and the image is so out of focus that 150 might be a better dpi.  The secret is to look at the image magnified to just the beginning of being pixelated in PhotoShop to see what you have.  The moment of truth is finding that even if you do scan at high resolution and do your best fixing it, the picture is not going to look better blown up.  So, when you get a feel for that, take the time to talk to the customer in advance to let them see the magnified image, the amount of information (pixels) that you have to work with and suggest that they keep the picture in the same size or maybe (rarely) smaller.  The more experience you have fixing photos, the more confident you will be when you first get the image.  However, a good magnifying glass and a couple minutes of examination could make a big difference.

Next time, we will look at the EYES...which are very different from one another...unless you have one that is missing....