I hope you are inspired by the book Photoshop Restoration & Retouching and that you would like to share your work with other reader's. Show us how you've taken the techniques in the book and gone further with them. If you send me before and after files (please keep them small, 1 MB in total) of the retouched image I'll post them here in the Reader's Gallery. Be sure to include information on how I can contact you; great examples of restoration and retouching may be fodder for the next edition of the book.
Antique Gallery • Page One
Antique Gallery • Page Two
Antique Gallery • Page ThreeSome of the images are rollovers - please mouse over an image to see the before and after.
Restored by Robert Gunderson
"I love attempting what others consider to be impossible. There are no secrets about the process I used to resotre the tattered image seen above. Mostly cloning, and copying and pasting good pieces of the image over bad, like a big jigsaw puzzle, and then adjusting levels to get the print just right. Over the course of a week, I spent about 25 hours on this image, and if there's a secret to it at all, I'd say the key was to realize when I was starting to get tired and sloppy, and quitting for the day. The owners were thrilled with the finished job. It was very satisfying."
Patrick O'Connell
Dear Katrin:
I want to thank you for your wonderful book, Restoration and Retouching. It has been a book that truly took my Photoshop skills to a new level, not just for restoring old photos, but understanding how to use Photoshop in new and creative ways. The tutorials in the book are very well organized and help guide the user to a greater understanding of this incredible tool.
The original photo (seen above) was taken in 1922 and the one I was working from looked like a copy of that original. I think who ever made the copy also enlarged it, which, of course, enhanced all of the defects. I have no idea where the yellowish color came from, but using your techniques, it was not that difficult to remove.
Again, thanks for the book and I look forward to your next.
Ken Crost
Hello Katrin,
I've attached before and after jpeg files of an old, faded, torn and damaged photo of two sisters. I moved the two pieces into position and stitched them together with the the clone tool and then I used Levels and Variations to adjust color and contrast. The customer was most happy to have his aunts back together again. I offer my services through my web site at www.re-image.com
David Truly
Waxahachie, Texas
Hello Katrin,Here is an image restoration that I am very proud of. The man in the picture is my great-grandfather, a Civil War Veteran. I am lucky enough to have 2 photos of him, but this one was in the worst shape.
Best regards,
Lorie Zirbes
ArtistLZ@aol.com
As Bob Walden explains, "The older girl scribbled on the picture as seen on the left and wanted ink removed and the image restored. After scanning in the image, I used the blue channel to remove all the ink marks. Total time about 30 seconds! Of course the rest of the work took awhile, but the blue channel technique as you described in the cowboy example was a real lifesaver."
Hello Katrin,
Well, I've never written to an author before -- this is a first. I would like to commend you for your excellent book "Photoshop Restoration & Retouching". I have recommended it to several people -- it is practical and cleverly written. I am going through it a second time to reinforce some of these techniques.
My original was a small JPG file (only 24 K), so I opened it in Photoshop and immediately saved it as a Genuine Fractals file. I reopened the file at a resolution of 300 dpi, 4 x 6 inches (about 5.4 MB in size). To get rid of the muddy sepia tone, I converted the photograph to Lab Color, highlighted the lightness channel, converted the photograph to Grayscale, and then back to RGB. I determined the shadow and highlight areas using a temporary Threshold layer, opened a new Levels layer and adjusted the histogram using the eyedroppers. I selected the sky and copied it to a new layer and applied a Gaussian Blur, then dropped the opacity until it looked right. I opened a new layer and using the Clone tool, removed the remaining scratches and blotches. I reapplied the sepia tone using the Sepia Toning Action, and reducing the opacity on the resulting layer to 50%.
Regards,
Bob Triol
Both of these (above and below) Daguerreotype were retouched by Sean Melnick, who is a former student of mine and whose work is featured in the book in the book's introduction.
I fell in love with Ellie Kennard's image of her great-grandmother, who was a hardworking woman in Newfoundland, Canada. As Ellie told me," After using Levels to correct the overall fading of the image the man's head was still too pale next to the sky, so I made a selection of it and placed it onto its own layer, set to multiply and reduced the opacity to 17%. I used the Clone Stamp to rebuild the fence and shoes." To see more of Ellie's work please visit www.iiStudio.com
Dear Ms. Eismann,
I am an amateur genealogist and enjoy restoring antique photos of my extended family. I am mostly self taught, so your book is a real help. I have attached a before & after example of two of my restorations, my first cousin four times removed Mrs. Elizabeth Campbell (Autry) Elmore of Havana, Alabama (above) and her husband Bartlet Herbert Elmore (below). The originals are "tintypes" still in the Elmore family. I use Photoshop 5 for my work.Sincerely,
Kerry Barksdale
Tuscaloosa, Alabama
Lee Lawrence of P&Q Photo in Hollywood, CA has attended a number of my classes and lectures and was generous enough to send me a few examples of his restoration work seen above and below. As Lee says, "Attached are two restorations I did using techniques I've learned from you."
Matt (from Maine) sent me this example of his mother when she was just a baby.
Hello Katrin,
My girlfriend had an old picture of her mother and grandfather. Using several of the techniques in the book, I was able to restore the picture. She is as pleased with the results as I am.
Thanks,
Marty Guzman
Jeff Comella is a commercial photographer based in Pittsburgh and a self taught computer pixel mover. As he says, "I try to add value to each job by retouching and compositing." Jeff has a number of examples in the different reader galleries and they are all wonderfully executed.
Restored by Sherry Stinson
Robert Boothby graduated from Brooks Institute of Photography in April 1980. He learned photo retouching with traditional graphite pencils, an etching tool and Q-tips. After many years in various photography jobs he is currently employed in the electronic prepress field and is using Adobe Photoshop as his retouching tool of choice. This example shows a before and after comparison of his wife's grandfather.
Hello Katrin,
The client ask me to take his dad and put his photo in over his grandfather.We took a photo of the antique image with the Foveon digital camera and then i scanned the really yellow photo of the young guy and used the techniques from the book, which worked like a gem. Then I tinted the photo to the customers liking and finally selected him and moved him over
the grandfather and added a slight vignette. By the way thank you for your time you are so good at what you do and your book has really helped.Thank you,
dnrwolf@qwest.net
Katrin,
I contacted you about 3 weeks ago thanking you for your book. I have truly enjoyed it and I am learning many new techniques.
I have enclosed a sample of what I did with the only photo my Mother has of her Dad who passed away when she was 9 years old. I could not take it out of it's 3x4 metal frame because it was in about 30 pieces, some of which you can see have fallen already. Instead of scanning it, I took a picture of it with my Nikon 885 digital camera. The end result was well worth the time when I saw my Mother's expression when I presented her with an 8x10 gold framed picture of her father.
Thanks again,
Don C
"always learning"
As Jack Reeves explains, "This is my parent's wedding photo from 1908 - it was badly discolored and using the techniques in your book, I removed the color and then hand-colored the photo again."
I attended your lecture at the most recent PhotoExpo Convention in NY and bought your book.
WOW - it has really enhanced my understanding of photo retouching. Thanks again! Lee
Antique Gallery • Page Two
Antique Gallery • Page Three