How to enhance old family photos (1)
Repairing a tear
So many of us have lovely old photos tucked away in a cupboard that are faded and
creased. It would be a shame to let a part of our history literally fade away. This is
how you can easily restore them using Photoshop.
Step 1: Scan your original photo. You will need a high resolution image to work with,
so set the resolution to be 300dpi at actual size. My example shows a torn and faded
picture of a young woman.
Step 2: Use the healing brush tool to mend the tear on the left of the pic.
If you are unfamiliar with the Photoshop toolbox, hover your mouse over
the icons to see which tool is which. If you still can’t find what you are looking
for, go through the toolbox again, clicking and holding on the icons which have
little black triangles in the bottom righthand corners. This will bring up other
options, and you will soon find what you are looking for.
Press the ‘alt’ key and click with the mouse on a ‘good’ area of the pic. The brush will then replicate the area of the pic you have chosen when you paint with it.
Paint over the tear until you are satisfied with the result.
In part 2 I will show you how to improve the
picture’s colour and contrast.
