TECHNIQUES: Bringing Life to Old Pics

[Jeremy W.]

This is essentially a technique to make a picture more "intense". There are several other ways to do this (which I'll describe at the end of this), but this way worked best for this picture.

pic1: http://server2.tacf.org/examples/lonelyman1.jpg
goal: http://server2.tacf.org/examples/lonelyman3.jpg

1. Open your picture
2. Image > Adjust > Levels
3. Use these settings (give or take). Essentially you're looking to bring the mids to the left, then bring your highlights down to drop teh muddiness out of it. Play a bit

OTHER TECHNIQUES:

By increasing the Saturation (Image > Adjust > Saturation) you can also give new life to an image.

Image too dull, but has the right colours? Use Image > Adjust > Brightness/Contrast.

[ApWizard]

wow, great! u cut out the tails of the red, green and blue channel?

[Jeremy W.]

Drop the mids, drop the highlights, gets rid of the murkiness. There are other more precise ways of doing it (curves), but I prefer this one, since I can then just adjust from there