Tips and tricks for restoring old photos and removing blemishes digitally
Meeting notes from 02-26-08
Tools needed:
A good scanner
For prints, almost any scanner will do pretty well, but if you are doing small photos, slides or negatives, you will probably want to go with a nicer Epson scanner such as the Epson Perfection 4490. These scanners offer transparancy scanning for slides and negatives as well as very high 4800 dpi resolution for well under $200.
Scan all images at 600 dpi. The smaller the photo, the higher the resolution. Scan slides and negatives at the highest optical resolution possible (4800 dpi in the case of the Epson mentioned above).
After you have scanned the image in, you will want to save it under two different names such as, “original” and “restored.” This provides a backup incase you need to go back to the original file.
There are two tools that you will use often in Photoshop Elements while restoring photos – the Healing Brush tool and the Clone Stamp tool. Both do essentially the same thing, but the healing tool blends and repairs the photo a little better.
For tips in Photoshop on how to use these tools, you can press the F1 key while using Elements for some very handy tips and tutorials.
