Photo Restoration Basics

John McCorsley

The following pages in this PDF file contain a handout supplied by John

McCorsley, who presented a program about photo restoration at the May 13,

2015 meeting of the Cary Photographic Artists.

This file contains four images in varying stages of disrepair, which John has

supplied for those interested in photo restoration to use for practice. The images

must be extracted from this file so they can be opened in Lightroom, Photoshop,

Photoshop Elements, or other photo editing tools.

To extract each image from this file, the following steps are required.

1. Open a photo editor or other program that supports pasting a clipboard

image into the editor. Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Windows

Paintbrush, and Irfanview all support this. It may be necessary to create a

new blank image in the editor to enable pasting an image.

2. Navigate to the page containing the image to be extracted.

3. Mouse over the image and left click (or equivalent) to select the image.

4. Right click and select click on “Copy Image” in the pop-up box.

5. Past the copied image into the editor.

6. Save the image, preferably as a Tagged Image Format (TIF or TIFF)

7. Begin having fun restoring the image!

-Maurice Weaver

Photo Restoration Basics

I. IMAGE CAPTURE: (Always include a neutral gray card or color checker in the image)

1. Scan the image: (Always include a neutral gray card or color checker in the image) a. If original is a print – Scan the image at 300 (dpi/ppi) minimum. If you desire to scan

it at a higher resolution you may do so at your descression. b. If the original is a NEGATIVE or a TRANSPARANCY (SLIDE) (35mm, 2 ¼ X 2 ¼, or 4 x 5)

Scan the image in the range of a low of 800 dpi/ppi to as high as 1200 dpi/ppi depending on the size of the print you wish the final image to be.

2. Photograph the image: (Always include a neutral gray card or color checker in the image) a. Shoot it outdoors using a light diffuser of your preference to soften the light on the

image and to eliminate any glare or unwanted highlights. b. Shoot it indoors using artificial light also with a diffuser of some sort with either

your flash, continuous, or natural lighting set up.

3. Black & White Originals: (Always include a neutral gray card or color checker in the image) a. If the desired final restored image as a True B&W, without any sepia or other tinting

applied, you may select to scan the original as a Black and White image. However, if you prefer to convert your image to B&W in Photoshop or Lightroom, scan it as a color image and use the Black & White Conversion tool in either of the applications to get greater control over your final image.

b. If you or your customer desires a final restored image that is TINTED OR SEPIA B&W, I would recommend scanning the original as a COLOR image, and make your adjustments in either Photoshop or Lightroom.

II. PRIMARY RESTORATION TOOLS USED:

Basically, Lightroom only gives you tools that apply GLOBAL CHANGES TO AN IMAGE. These can be best used if the image needs any of the following adjustments:

- Exposure, Contrast, Clarity, - Hue, Saturation, & Lightness, Color, and Black & White adjustments, - Sharpening or Noise Reduction adjustments, - Cropping and/or Vignetting.

1. LIGHTROOM TOOLS:

a. Develop Mode: i. Basic ii. Tone Curve iii. HSL / COLOR / B&W iv. SPLIT TONING v. DETAIL vi. EFFECTS vii. LENS CORRECTION (If you captured the original image by photographing it

and needed to correct for lens distortion)

2. PHOTOSHOP TOOLS: (QUICK KEYS) a. Selection Tools:

i. Marquee Tools (M) ii. Lasso, Polygonal Lasso, and Magnetic Lasso Tools (L) iii. Magic Wand & Quick Selection Tools (W)

b. Image Repair Tools:

i. Spot Healing Brush Tool (J) ii. Healing Brush Tool (J) iii. Patch Tool (J) iv. Red Eye Tool (J) v. Clone Stamp Tool (S)

c. Image Paint, Drawing, Fill, Blending, Dodge + Burn, & Erasing Tools:

i. Brush, Pencil, Color Replacement & Mixer Brush Tools (B) ii. Blur, Sharpen, & Smudge Tools (There is no Quick Key for this tool) iii. Dodge, Burn, & Sponge Tools (O) iv. Eraser Tool, Background Eraser & Magic Eraser Tools (E) v. Gradient and Paint Bucket Tools (G)

Photoshop tools give the user greater and more precise control over the modification(s) or edits that may be required to render the desired outcome for the restored image. PLEASE NOTE: Photoshop is a VERY powerful application/program! It allows the user to employ

unique tools to bring their creative thoughts to reality. In addition, there is not just one, but also MANY ways to approach a particular modification or edit. There is no right or wrong way of doing an edit. There are however, ways to edit efficiently, or not so efficiently. Ultimately, it does matter in which version of Photoshop you are working and whether a process will take one step or many steps to achieve the final desired outcome. Neither Photoshop Elements nor Lightroom will give you the vast number of Tools that the Full Extended Version of Photoshop offers. My recommendation is to either subscribe to the Full Extended version of Photoshop or Purchase it outright. The subscription option is available if you subscribe to Lightroom via the Creative Cloud. Contact Adobe for the full cost information. Also, if you are or plan on working in Web Design, Graphic Art, Special Effects or Image Editing, the Full Extended version of Photoshop is the best Program within which to work.

If you wish to take notes during this presentation, I recommend that you bring pen, pencil and paper with you to the Wednesday meeting. I will answer questions as time allows. If you are unable to get you’re your question, then you may email or phone me at your leisure. email = john@jmccorsley.com phone Tuesday through Friday (noon - 6pm) 919-610-3487 To view examples of my restoration, visit my Web address: http://jmccorsley.com