Photoshop
Elements 3 Tutorial
Restore Photo
This is a
damaged photo that was carried in a wallet for a
couple of decades because it was much beloved.
You probably will never be asked to restore a
photo with this much damage in your lifetime.
This is not the only way to restore a photo,
it's just the way that I approached the project.
I'm going to
Adobe® Photoshop Elements
3® to show you just how powerful this
program's tools are but they can be duplicated
to a degree in other photo editing programs. And
I only had about 10 hours to devote to this
project.
My goal was to get a reasonable likeness out of
it before it completely falls apart and is lost
forever. Also, I wanted to be able to print a
fairly clear image in an 8 x 10 size and
put old glory in the background on a color
transparency layer in a sepia toned finished
portrait. The original photo is only about
1-1/2 x 1=3/4 inch in size.
A background in portrait art is a plus on this
project, since some very important parts of the
main facial features are completely missing from
it and will have to be painted in. Be prepared
to put in a lot of time on a project like this.
1
First, I scanned the image in at the highest
setting my scanner could go which is 1800 ppi,
at 400 percent. I immediately
saved it as a .psd untouched and backed it up to
cd. The original scan was over 100 mb. I did not
flatten my layers as I worked so I could have a
visual record of the steps I took every few
hours for each phase, creating a fresh duplicate
layer to work on so I could go back if I messed
up horribly without losing hours of work. I also
used the undo feature (ctrl + z) a lot.
1
2 I
duplicated the layer, enlarged the photo using zoom and selected the
healing brush tool in 'replace' mode. Then
started selecting good areas of the background
to completely replace the color in most the
missing areas. The 'normal' mode of the healing
brush will merge the pixels with the missing
white areas without completely coloring it in.
We'll do a lot of that later to smooth it out.
Changing the size of the brush as needed, I
worked on one small area at a time, constantly
picking up color and laying it down (keep your
left finger on the 'alt' key) concentrating
around the head area, counting heavy on the flag
layer to cover a lot of background
imperfections. I also filled in some of the
missing areas on the subject. Looking back, I
could have saved a lot of time if I had just cut
out the background and replaced it but somewhere along the line I
decided to give it a 'painterly' background look
showing through the flag, imitating clouds
maybe??? It seemed like a better choice to me.
2
3 I
duplicated the working layer again and began
work on the new layer, finishing filling in the
remaining white areas and then painting in some
shadows trying to reform the missing features.
The ear and nose looked fair without a lot of
work but I spent a lot of time on trying to get
the eye to look right. At this stage, it looks
pretty messed up. I also spent a fair
amount of time on the uniform scratches and
discolored areas of it and I decided to take the
background color all the way out to the edges
getting rid of the black border.
3
4 I
duplicated the last layer and using the
Polygonal Lasso Tool, selected the edges of the
subject, inverted my selection (Ctrl+Shift+I)
then hit the delete key to remove the background
from the layer. Selecting the layer below it, I
inserted a new layer for the flag graphic.
4
5
The flag graphic is inserted between the cutout
layer and the top background layer with a
transparency of about 50 percent using the
Opacity slider from the layers palette. The
overall tone of the photo needs adjusting. I'm
ready to flatten the layers (Layer - flatten
image) then resize it for inkjet printing (Image
- resize - image size) adjusting the resolution
to 300 pixels/inch.
5
Using
(Enhance - adjust color - color variations)
selection, the photo was lightened, color was
removed, then readjusted and the contrast was kicked up a notch
(Enhance - adjust lighting -
brightness/contrast). I cropped the photo
changing the document size width and height
to 8 x 10 inches. Below shows before and after
shots.
Lastly, the restoration is ready to print. I had to adjust the
tone of the finished work slightly to get the results I
wanted in the print.
Is it perfect? No it's not, I don't do photo
restoration for a living, but I'm pleased with
the overall results. Being an artist means I'm
hesitant to call it done if I think I can
improve it given a little more time. Could it
use a few more hours of work? Definitely, but the
owner of the photo was totally impressed and
delighted with the results and not only will carry the
new wallet size photo in his wallet laminated,
but now has an 8 x 10 proudly displayed on his
mantle.
The print
shows much sharper detail than it displays on
the web as a compressed .jpg.
Enlarged photo
detail
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Polygonal Lasso
Brush
Tools
Eraser 
Healing Brushes
Crop Tool