Hobbies And Pastimes

You will find that there are times you may have older photographs that you would like to restore in order to preserve the memories. It is common for photos to become damaged through the passing of time. At times the pictures may become blurred, the color might fade and the surface of the picture might acquire marks and scratches. Fortunately we have the technology to restore these photos. People are now able to save and even restore their old photographs with the help of Photoshop.

Some of the things a person might use include the Elements in Photoshop, which are Dust and Scratch Filters to remove marks, scratches and even blots on the photograph. To find the Dust and Scratches Filter you can look on the Menu Bar and choose the Filter Tab. A drop down option list will show your choices and from there you can choose the Noise tab and select on the Dust and Scratches.

After selecting the Dust and Scratches menu, a dialog box will pop up with two control sliders. The first slider is for options regarding Radius and the second one is for options regarding Threshold. There may also be another window if the preview box is checked. These are the two main options that can be used in fixing the picture.

Adjusting the Radius slider may remove the scratches. However, there is a tendency that overdoing it may make the edges blurred too. If that happens, the option is to adjust the Threshold slider and this will allow the details to go back and make the picture clearer with the scratches disappearing. The person should be careful not to set them too far or it will only create blotches on the picture.

In removing the marks, selecting the whole photo will not diffuse these marks. The option is to select only the part where the scratches are located. He may use the Lasso to do this.

Once you have fixed the areas you may want to use the feather tool to feather the edges of the selected area so that the fixed selection will not be obvious on the picture. To use the feather tool you click the Feather option and choose the Scratch and Dust Filter again. You might want to do the radius and threshold adjustment process again to get the correct texture and make sure all the scratches and marks are removed.

To finish the process and make the photograph appear professional I recommend you crop the image enough to remove any cracks or torn edges of the photograph. The canvas may be use to equally crop the image.

You can also add drama to the photograph by adding a drop shadow. Drop shadows make the photograph appear as if it has been lifted off the page by placing a shadow underneath it. You can also remove color from the photograph by using the controls Shift+Ctrl+U. To make your photograph appear old you can use a little amount of Sepia coloring. This can be achieved using the Hue or Saturation tab. Contrast can be adjusted using the Levels option.

This is one easy way on how to remove the blotches and marks on an old picture. This is also a good way to make the picture look new but still appear classical. It will be a pleasant and easy way to display pictures kept on old albums and cabinets for a long time.