Old Photos

[kev145]

Hi all,
Have some very old photo's that I would like to restore. Can anyone recommend software that will help me do this.
Cheers
Kev

[KeithT]

Hi Kev. It's funny you should ask this. I have just restored and cleaned seven 5"x3" photographs taken between 1916 and 1919 (WW1) of the Turkish atrocities to Armenians, Greeks, Arabs and Israelites, to prepare them as stock images for historians. The content of which was pretty unsavoury to work on I can tell you. However, to answer your question I use Photoshop CS4 which is a pretty powerful tool to restore old images to almost pristine condition. Some practise is needed I have to say. Before that I used CS2 and that was just as good for this purpose. I cannot advise on other edit software for this purpose, but one tip is not to try and catch every scratch, as this usually ends up in degrading the integrity of the original. Also advised is the use of layers so that you can easily go back if you don't like what you have done.

I scanned them at 1200 resolution and resized them after working on them. It meant I could zoom in quite large on screen to work on them comfortably. My finished images are 30mb Tiffs on average.

Sorry if I have rattled on. Good luck. It is always an interesting project to undertake.

[ianpinion]

Hi Kev,

As Keith has mentioned you can use Photoshop CS4 or CS5 for this kind of work, but they're quite expensive pieces of software to buy, typically £600+. However, for a fraction of the cost you could buy Photoshop Elements 8, £60-£70, which has all the tools you'll need to restore them with, or you could get Lightroom 3 for about £320 instead.

[kev145]

Hi guys,
thanks for the quick replies, forgot to mention I use CS4 but was not sure how good the tools were, thought there might be better sortware that would do a better job, will try CS4 tools but if anyone knows of professional software would certainly consider it.
kev

[GeoffWessex]

I'm with ianpinion...... CS4 or CS5 are way over the top for this job (frankly, it's over the top for most photographic jobs but newcomers are told "it's the best" so they go out and blindly hand over a wad of cash). PS Elements has all the tools you need for 90% of photo editing tasks - and the other 10% would hardly be used anyway.
(Stands back and waits for a flaming...... from CS4/5 owners who don't want to admit they made a mistake).

[KeithT]

Give us a break Geoff... I started with PS 7 and then went from that to Elements. Two hours of working with Elements and I couldn't wait to get CS2. Elements has probably improved since then, but so has PS in general and CS4 has tools that are a dream to use, and I'm sure CS5 is even better. Anyway, the OP has already said he uses CS4, so no problems with that...

[GeoffWessex]

See?

Though I would agree that Elements before version was pretty poor, version 5 was an improvement (but does odd things), 6 and onwards are very good, with PSE8 being the current version. As I say, 90% of photographic editing (and cataloging) can be done in Elements..... 57 quid vs 606 quid (Amazon). I'd rather buy more important photo equipment with the difference - I could get a good prime lens, sturdy tripod, new bag, AND filters.... or, come to think of it, a fairly decent 'second camera'.

[ianpinion]

Kev, seeing as you've already got CS4, which is firmly aimed at professional photographers and is regarded as the market leader for photo editing, then you're really going to struggle to find anything better. CS4 is a superb package (and at that price it damn well should be!) for restoring old damaged photographs. If you can't do anything short of an amazing job with it, then you need to go on a course to learn how to use it properly!

I've restored a few old photographs using Elements 8 and done a pretty good job, so you should have no excuses!

[kev145]

Many thanks once again for all the input, the members of this site never fail to deliver.
kev