Hello

[WarrenG]

My interest in genealogy has led me to focus on restoring old photos for family & friends, especially photos of ancestors. I also volunteer with our local heritage center and it would be nice to restore some of the really old photos people have donated from the late 1800s and early 1900s of life and places in Johnston County, NC.

I've been using PS Elements 13 for a few years to restore old photos. I feel comfortable using most of the healing tools and adjustments - spot healing brush, clone stamp, noise filter, levels, etc. I recently upgraded to Ps CC to try to learn its expanded capabilities - mainly learning how to adjust tonal & detail quality, overall exposure / lighting. making complicated masks, and solving the really tough repair problems like tarnish, mold, etc. Any help or links to training videos is much appreciated. Trying to teach an old guy new tricks is challenging to the little gray cells.

For those who are trying to learn restoration techniques, it would be great if the people could upload their completed restoration in psd format. Learners could then see the layers and adjustments they made to the photo and any explanations -- like how they evaluated the photo and decided on a work flow to repair the photo.

 

[IamSam]

Hello and welcome. 13 years! That's longer than I have in on photo restoration!

I would love to see your interpretation of this image: https://www.photoshopgurus.com/forum/threads/assistance-with-photo-repair.71780/

Take a look and let us see some of your work!! Good luck and have fun!

Here's just one thread I started about 6 years ago, take a look: https://www.photoshopgurus.com/forum/threads/photo-retouching-practice.51515/

I have many damaged photos if your interested in taking them on and explaining your process. Let me know!

 

[WarrenG]

Wow, this is a challenging one. There are so many very small cracks on the whole image. Do you know what dpi it was scanned at? I was reading about a masking technique for small cracks but the photo needs to be scanned at 1,200 to 2,400 to get enough detail for it to work well. This would be a good photo to try it on. I'll see what I can do with it as is.

 

[WarrenG]

I haven't been doing Photoshop for 13 years. Just started doing Photoshop when I retired at the end of 2013 and bought Photoshop Elements 13. Have also bought a few books on photo restoration techniques but nothing beats seeing how others apply those techniques.

 

[IamSam]

Do you know what dpi it was scanned at?

No. Sorry. You would have to ask the OP (original poster) of the thread.

 

[IamSam]

I haven't been doing Photoshop for 13 years.

Yes! Sorry for that. I have been guilty of scan reading here recently. I have too many irons in the fire and am distracted by multi-tasking. Hopefully this will change after I finish several projects I have going on right now.

 

[WarrenG]

Ok. I worked on it as is and posted my attempt to the thread.