Art Of Photography

There are times that people may have old photographs they would like to restore to save the memories. Photos usually get damaged through the times. The pictures may get blurred, the color fades and the picture might acquire marks and scratches. Thank the technology of today. People can now save and restore their old photos with the help of Photoshop.

The Elements in Photoshop, which are the Dust and Scratch Filter can eliminate marks and blotches in the photograph. Located on the Menu Bar, find the Dust and Scratches Filter and click on the Filter Tab. A drop down menu will appear listing the elements. Choose the Noise Tab and select Dust and Scratches.

After clicking on the Dust and Scratches menu, a window will pop up with two control sliders. The first slider is for the Radius and the other one is for the Threshold. There will also be another window if the preview box will be checked. These are the main options that will be used in treating the picture.

The Radius slider may do away with the scratches through adjustments. Please take note that overdoing this process may result in the edges blurring. Should this happen, adjust the Threshold slider to raise the clarity of details and make the picture crisper with the scratches vanishing. Be careful though not to adjust either slider too far or it may result in blotches on the photo.

Selecting the entire photo will not correct and remove all of the marks in one shot. The better alternative is to use the Lasso feature to select only a small area where the scratch is located to treat the photo one section at a time. This improves the quality of the photo as a whole, without losing any of the detail.

You can feather the edges of the selected area treated so that the correction and the fact that a portion of the photo has been altered will not be apparent in the overall photo. Do this by clicking on the Feather option and choose the Scratch and Dust Filter again. Repeat the process of adjusting the Radius and Threshold sliders another time to achieve the texture desired and eliminate the scratches.

Should there still be noticeable marks in other areas of the photo, repeat all of the steps, choosing one portion of the photo at a time for adjustment. You can crop the image to remove any cracks and torn edges of the picture to complete the process. The canvas feature can be used to evenly crop the photo.

A person may add drama on the picture by adding a drop shadow on it. This will make the picture appear as if it has been lifted off the page. The color may also be removed using the controls Shift+Ctrl+U. He can then add color by putting a little amount of Sepia. He can do this with the Hue or Saturation tab. The contrast may 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.