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Old Photographs, Recognition, Handwriting Deciphering => Free Photo Restoration & Date Old Photographs => Photograph Resources, Tips, Tutorials => Topic started by: Mike Morrell (NL) on Thursday 01 June 17 21:28 BST (UK)
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I'm a complete newbie to Rootschat and the 'photo restoration' forum. But I know much more about restoration and Photoshop than I did 4 weeks ago! So first all I'd like to than everyone who encouraged me and gave me tips on how to learn 'restoration' during the past weeks. Notably jloy326 for his invaluable 'in-depth' resources and HandyPandy for his ongoing feedback, advice and tips. Not only on 'restoration' but on great music too! :)
From the 'restorers' who I've had no direct contact with, I've learned a lot through their examples. Mostly as an inspiration as to what's possible in restoration. And sometimes as an inspiration to find out more about a specific technique. I've PM'd a couple restorers with specific questions and all have been very helpful.
As a newbie, I'm not sure what the etiquette is with regard to sharing questions, tips, advice, etc. between restorers. Sometimes compliments and Q&A between restorers are included in the topic for each photo. But somehow, the forum topic for each photo doesn't seem to be the right place for extended discussions between restorers on the 'why and how' of specific versions. Because everyone works differently, I'm not sure who would be interested in sharing their experience, workflow, tips and advice.
To cut a long story short, I thought that this 'topic' could be a place where restorers can ask each other questions, share tips, compliment each other on particularly good restores. etc.
If there's no interest, this 'topic' will just fall of the forum, never to be heard of again. If restorers have questions, tips to share, etc, then the 'topic' will continue to live.
Mike
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Since I started this thread, I suppose I should kick it off with a question and its on dealing with 'Dust and Scratches'.
The photo that I had in mind for this is 'William Burns at Cowden Hall hospital' here: http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic772509.0 (http://www.rootschat.com/forum/index.php?topic772509.0). After adjusting the levels to bring more contrast into the photo, a lot of fine scratches became very visible.
There seem to be different approaches to making these scratches less visible and I wondered which ones you use and how you use them.
The most obvious way in Photoshop is to apply the 'Dust and Scratches' filter to the photo as a whole or to selected parts. But no matter how well I fine-tune the filter, some fine details are blurred by the filter. So I guess it's possible to protect specific areas using a mask.
A second way is to clean small areas and clone/patch these into the scratched ares. But for the William Burns photo, this seemed like a mountain of work.
A third way is to create a 'Dust and Scratches' mask using (in Photoshop) the 'Find Edge' and/or 'High Pass' filters. Using this mask, you can selectively apply curves adjustments to lighten/darken scratches to match the surrounding area. You also use the mask to 'paint' over the scratches in the local colour or greyscale value.
There are probably other ways that I don't know about. :)
I've played around using a 'Dust & Scratches' mask in different ways but I haven't been able to make the scratches anywhere close to 'ínvisible' yet.
So, what's you preferred method(s) for dealing with fine scratches?
Thanks,
Mike
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Mike,
In the photograph you mention above, the scratches are also faded and within the range of density of the rest of the image. Because of this I would resort to the Heal Selection filter of GIMP. I think that the Content Aware filter of Photoshop is similar. This is obviously time consuming, but can be speeded up by putting a transparent layer on top of the image and painting over the scratches with a suitable width, hard-edged brush (in any convenient colour). Do a selection by colour on your painting, select the image layer and run the Heal Selection Filter (or in your case Content Aware). With Heal Selection there are options to sample from all around, sides or above and below - I assume something similar in Photoshop.
Please keep the questions and answers coming - I am sure we all have much to learn - me especially!
Regards,
dafydd46.
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Sounds like you haven't read through all the tips and queries here-
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/resources-tips-tutorials/
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Mike made a request for specific information which I did not find in http://www.rootschat.com/forum/resources-tips-tutorials/
Perhaps I missed it somehow. Also many of the previous tips are now dated - for instance from before Photoshop introduced Content Aware. Also whilst GIMP has had Heal Selection (Resynthesize) for many years I have not discovered a reference to it.
dafydd46.
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I'm relatively new to the restores too. Before I joined this site, just over a year ago, I had done a few bits and bobs that I downloaded from Google images to practice on and a few of my own.
I had been using GIMP and various bits of software from here and there for many years, but primarily on modern photos to improve or manipulate into fun pics. I still do quite a bit in this area.
So.....whilst I thank Mike for his kind comment, Its a bit 'blind leading the blind' ;D
The main comment I'd make at this stage, is that I very rarely use the auto type filters except for the occasional bit of de-noising and even then I tend to have the strength turned down as they often make more work than they solve. For light scratches I would use the healing tool and for heavier stuff I would use the clone at various opacities and then probably go over it again with the healing tool. Its a long drawn out process and does take a lot of time.
To repair a badly damaged eye, I will more often than not clone the good eye from a flipped version.
Some of the more experienced restorers, I'm not really happy to single anyone out, but Yvonne, Cazz and Carol are extremely clever artists and can show most of us the way home, studying their work should be recommended to anyone taking up this hobby. Some of their jobs can be quite understated, but its not until you have a bash yourself that you realise just how smart they are.
I do work with layers quite bit (obviously for the colouring...but) mainly because not all areas of a pic require the same treatment, especially over or under exposed bits, so I will work on the separate areas as transparent layers and then flatten the image later.
And Mike, as you brought up the music, both you and I are musicians and there is only one way! As a young muso, I once asked a visiting musician how he had done a certain riff during his show, his one word answer was, "Practice"........ at the time, I thought him an arrogant chuff, but of course he was absolutely right ;D
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Just to amplify on what I said above, Dust & Scratches filter can be useful, in less important areas of an image, when the scratches are darker (or lighter) than the wanted parts of the print. But I must agree with Handypandy, the clone and healing brushes do the bulk of the work. Also, as a musician, I can echo the importance of practice!
dafydd46.
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Yes, you're right. I haven't read through all the discussions. So I may well have missed some important Q&A. I did browse through the discussions and I clicked on a few of the links. Some of the external links were 'dead'.My impression was that the most recent posts in these discussions were posted more than 10 years ago. That doesn't mean that aren't a valuable resource, but it explains the dead links. The most recent posts also seemed to be about software rather than restoration techniques. All considered, I decided to look around for more recent tutorials. Forgive me for asking 'newbie' questions that were answered long ago. I'll take another look at the link you provided.
Thanks,
Mike
\Sounds like you haven't read through all the tips and queries here-
http://www.rootschat.com/forum/resources-tips-tutorials/
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Good tip, Dafydd! (a Welshman too, I presume :) )
Thanks for this. I was stuck in a 'filter' box for removing Dust and Scratches, but you're right of course. I think the Heal Selection filter/content aware healing brush would remove most if not all of the scratches. Now why didn't I think of this? Probably because I was stuck in the 'filter' box!
Many thanks for helping me look outside the box!
Mike
Mike,
In the photograph you mention above, the scratches are also faded and within the range of density of the rest of the image. Because of this I would resort to the Heal Selection filter of GIMP. I think that the Content Aware filter of Photoshop is similar. This is obviously time consuming, but can be speeded up by putting a transparent layer on top of the image and painting over the scratches with a suitable width, hard-edged brush (in any convenient colour). Do a selection by colour on your painting, select the image layer and run the Heal Selection Filter (or in your case Content Aware). With Heal Selection there are options to sample from all around, sides or above and below - I assume something similar in Photoshop.
Please keep the questions and answers coming - I am sure we all have much to learn - me especially!
Regards,
dafydd46.
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Hi Andy, a couple of restorers gave me exactly the same advice and they were right too!
But in a previous life, I moderated forums like Rootschat that helped members learn from each other. Sometimes through members sharing something new that they've picked up, sometimes by asking for - and getting - advice and sometimes just by 'comparing notes'. This was the idea when I started this topic. Yes you learn the most through just practicing. But sometimes a nudge in the right direction from someone else can help.
On the 'blindness' scale, I'd rate your visibility highly! ;)
Mike
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As a young muso, I once asked a visiting musician how he had done a certain riff during his show, his one word answer was, "Practice"........ at the time, I thought him an arrogant chuff, but of course he was absolutely right ;D
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Don't get me wrong, if folk get involved I think its a good idea. I wouldn't dream of offering advice unless it was asked for though as I would probably get, and deserve, a swift M.Y.O.B. ;D
As the man said... we don't do requests unless we're asked ;)
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Forgive me for not adding to this conversation as half the time I don't know what you are talking about. I have a very basic Photoshop programme with no fancy tools. I basically use the clone tool, remove noise, remove dust and scratches and that's about it. In some ways it would be easier to use all your smoothing, healing tools. It wouldn't take as long.
I do have Gimp but prefer my old faithful. That is why my restores will never be up to your standards, but I am too old to start learning a new programme now and will continue to plod along as I am doing.
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Interesting topic, Mike.
I’m in two - no, several - minds. On the one hand, as a learner I’d like to see a bit more explanation by restorers as to how they achieve certain results on difficult/unusual jobs; and I’d like to see this attached to the work itself so we that can see what we’re talking about. On the other hand - as you say - different people work differently. Some people like to discuss their work, others don’t wish to do so or feel uncomfortable doing so. And on the third hand, if we went too far in discussing stuff - attached to a contributor’s post - we might scare off potential new posts - a bit like surgeons discussing the details of the cuts in the presence of the patient.
Actually, I think what you have been doing occasionally is great - brief descriptions of your methods/problems with some restores.
Anyway, a few thoughts:
Last night (Australian time) I finally finished a restore (the Portuguese soldier) on my third attempt, after two false starts and after giving up but then starting again a few days later.
What was different the third time is a bit of a story; I’ll try to keep it brief.
Backing up a step, another job I spent a lot of time on recently was the wedding one with all the stripes. While doing it I read briefly about Fourier Transforms for removing lines, and dafydd said that they’d used it on that photo, and you (Mike) later said you were trying it out. I started looking in earnest for one for Macs. I found two sources. But one of those - for plugins (“joofa”) - was no longer providing them. I ended up downloading a copy of the other, a stand alone program called ImageJ. I tried this out on the photo in question and it did work to some extent but not really well enough for me to spend a lot more time on it to clean up the remainder. I presume that because the original photo had fading as well as lines that were variable - those two things in conjunction - the FFT processing couldn’t clean up all the lines. (I think I followed the instructions properly.)
I’d also read somewhere that GIMP had a Destripe filter which I thought I’d like to try out if ImageJ didn’t do the job. (And I do like comparing the features of different programs to decide which one is best for me - e.g. family tree programs! And when they’re free… SWMBO doesn’t object.) So I downloaded it and after working out how to drive it, I tried it out on the photo. No good. Much poorer results than the FFT. I suspect it may be good on straightforward stripes.
But now I had GIMP. So I gave it a go on the Portuguese photo. And I started getting better results. Not because GIMP is better than PSE, but because, completely new to GIMP, I had to go very slowly indeed. GIMP is different. It has a clunkier interface than Photoshop Elements, but - to a newbie anyway - it has more subtlety (is that the right word?) in some of its tools. (Disclaimer: I’m so new to both programs I probably don’t know which tools each one has compared with the other - I just haven’t found/used them yet. They definitely operate differently, anyway.)
I didn’t complete the restore solely using GIMP. I kept swapping between the two programs. I could do some things more easily/better in one, some things in the other. I won’t detail the pros and cons of each here because I’m being longwinded enough already and because with my limited experience - 2 months with PSE and one week with GIMP - whatever I said now would most likely turn out to be complete rubbish. Maybe I’ll do a comparison when I’ve had (a lot) more experience.
Cheers, Peter.
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You do great work with your 'old faithful', Pat! As far as I know, the main Photoshop features, filters etc are in pretty much all older versions. I started this thread (as an experiment) just as place where restorers can ask questions to other restorers, share anything new they've come across or tried out, etc. Maybe there's no interest in this. In any case, contributing is entirely optional.
Mike
Forgive me for not adding to this conversation as half the time I don't know what you are talking about. I have a very basic Photoshop programme with no fancy tools. I basically use the clone tool, remove noise, remove dust and scratches and that's about it. In some ways it would be easier to use all your smoothing, healing tools. It wouldn't take as long.
I do have Gimp but prefer my old faithful. That is why my restores will never be up to your standards, but I am too old to start learning a new programme now and will continue to plod along as I am doing.
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Hi Peter,
As a newbie I’m curious as to how some restorers achieve specific results too. The striped wedding photo is a cases in point. Ideally, (optional) Q&A between restorers would be attached or linked to the photo topic. But as you say, it doesn't seem right to clog up the photo topic with Q&A between restorers that are meaningless to the Original Poster. That's why I thought that a separate topic (or sub-forum?) for restorers might be useful. Just somewhere where restorers can post Q&A, share tips, etc. 'off-line' from specific photo topics.
I have no idea how much interest there is in sharing tips & techniques. It's fine by me if people don’t wish to do so or feel uncomfortable doing so. I also understand that people who have been doing restoration for many years have no interest in discussing techniques (yet again!).
Your point about using GIMP and Photoshop together - each with specific strengths -is interesting. I'd never thought of that! I don't know GIMP at all but I'll download a copy to find out more. I can imagine that there are plug-ins available for GIMP that aren't for Photoshop. Well worth finding out more!
Cheers,
Mike
Interesting topic, Mike.
I’m in two - no, several - minds. On the one hand, as a learner I’d like to see a bit more explanation by restorers as to how they achieve certain results on difficult/unusual jobs; and I’d like to see this attached to the work itself so we that can see what we’re talking about. On the other hand - as you say - different people work differently. Some people like to discuss their work, others don’t wish to do so or feel uncomfortable doing so. And on the third hand, if we went too far in discussing stuff - attached to a contributor’s post - we might scare off potential new posts - a bit like surgeons discussing the details of the cuts in the presence of the patient.
Actually, I think what you have been doing occasionally is great - brief descriptions of your methods/problems with some restores.
....
GIMP is different. It has a clunkier interface than Photoshop Elements, but - to a newbie anyway - it has more subtlety (is that the right word?) in some of its tools. (Disclaimer: I’m so new to both programs I probably don’t know which tools each one has compared with the other - I just haven’t found/used them yet. They definitely operate differently, anyway.)
I didn’t complete the restore solely using GIMP. I kept swapping between the two programs. I could do some things more easily/better in one, some things in the other. I won’t detail the pros and cons of each here because I’m being longwinded enough already and because with my limited experience - 2 months with PSE and one week with GIMP - whatever I said now would most likely turn out to be complete rubbish. Maybe I’ll do a comparison when I’ve had (a lot) more experience.
Cheers, Peter.
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You do great work with your 'old faithful', Pat! As far as I know, the main Photoshop features, filters etc are in pretty much all older versions. I started this thread (as an experiment) just as place where restorers can ask questions to other restorers, share anything new they've come across or tried out, etc. Maybe there's no interest in this. In any case, contributing is entirely optional.
Mike
Forgive me for not adding to this conversation as half the time I don't know what you are talking about. I have a very basic Photoshop programme with no fancy tools. I basically use the clone tool, remove noise, remove dust and scratches and that's about it. In some ways it would be easier to use all your smoothing, healing tools. It wouldn't take as long.
I do have Gimp but prefer my old faithful. That is why my restores will never be up to your standards, but I am too old to start learning a new programme now and will continue to plod along as I am doing.
Like you Pat, I am also using quite old software as my main source - Paint Shop Pro 8 and from time to time I resort to Gimp. I find that you get to know your choice of software and then it becomes a long steep learning curve to make a change. By the way, you achieve some lovely results
I think the idea of exchanging tips is great, as we are always learning with photo manipulation software, but I wonder how many of us are using different software?
Steve
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Just to amplify on what I said above, Dust & Scratches filter can be useful, in less important areas of an image, when the scratches are darker (or lighter) than the wanted parts of the print. But I must agree with Handypandy, the clone and healing brushes do the bulk of the work. Also, as a musician, I can echo the importance of practice!
dafydd46.
I haven't done any restores for ages (probably years :-\) but agree with dafydd46, although some restorers use filters for just about everything, many of the old school are hands on and prefer the manual approach. Facial reconstruction or badly damaged photos, for example, can take hours to repair when filters are not up to the job. And don't forget to master layers. FFT just takes practice, follow the online tutorials.
When I was a newby at restoring, I used to try to reproduce certain styles that the experienced restorers used until I was satsified with my work. Quite often I didn't even posting my results.
I used ps essentials 9, and still do. I need to ask.. what is the "content aware" filter? When was, that introduced and which application? Is it in the full photoshop app? I now have access to the latest all singing all dancing Adobe suite, thanks to my youngest daughter, who is a graphic designer, adding me as a licensed user unfortunately she installed it on the mac and I'm not a mac fan.
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To answer Mikes query on what methods folk used on the striped wedding pic...
In my case, I tried various routes and even posted two attempts. It was a particularly tough one. In the end, I resorted to cloning and healing with the odd bit of blur. Yes its was a long and drawn out process and in retrospect, had I spent even longer on it, I may have done a bit better. However, at only 25% of the way through it, I was already losing the will to live but had passed the point of no return, so carried on.
As for a separate sub forum, well of course there already is one and we probably should use it more. I would definitely be up for more interaction, we just need to be as pro-active as Mike and get posting.
Edit to add: It might be helpful if, in the above mentioned sub forum, the mods would allow posting examples which might not necessarily be in the general remit of the site.
Also... it would be easy enough, rather than hijack threads, to post a link in a restore thread to a "Restorers comments thread" in the sub forum.....am I making sense??? ???
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A few tips and tricks I've read about. Note I use Photoshop CC, I do not know the features of other programs, but I'm sure they have the equivalent.
Finding white and black points. (highlight & shadows)
1. Curves adjustment layer.
2. pulling the bar/line down
3. the last colors to show is your white. (Make sure it's part of the picture, not damages)
4. pull the bar/line up
5. the last colors to show is your blacks. (Again, make sure it isn't damages.)
Finding middle grey:
1. Create new Layer
2. Fill with 50% grey
3. set the blending mode to Difference
4. create Threshold adjustment layer
5. mover slider all the way to the left. (picture will be completely white)
6. slowly begin moving it back to the right.
7. The first colors to show up is your middle grey.
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As for a separate sub forum, well of course there already is one and we probably should use it more. I would definitely be up for more interaction, we just need to be as pro-active as Mike and get posting.
Edit to add: It might be helpful if, in the above mentioned sub forum, the mods would allow posting examples which might not necessarily be in the general remit of the site.
Also... it would be easy enough, rather than hijack threads, to post a link in a restore thread to a "Restorers comments thread" in the sub forum.....am I making sense??? ???
Oops, embarrassed and red-faced :-[, I somehow lost sight of the sub-forum when starting this topic. Even after posting there previously. I'll ask the mods to move this topic there from the main forum. The sub-forum is of course the right place to post any Q&A or share any tips. Posting a link from the Photo to any related topic on the subforum is an excellent idea.
Forgive this oversight on my part.
Mike
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Apologies if I’ve cut across the ideas of others. I wrote this before reading the more recent posts. Rather than rewrite it I’ll post it as first written.
Mike, one way of going about it might be to have a series of occasional posts interleaved with the normal ones, entitled “Restorers’ Notes” or some such, perhaps with a subtitle describing the main thing discussed. Examples might include such things as:
1. An interesting/unusual/difficult picture is posted. A restorer starts a topic, “Restorer’s Notes: Scanner Stripes” to begin a discussion on the picture, techniques used etc - with links to and from the particular photo post which gave rise to the discussion.
2. A restorer starts using a different program or technique, not necessarily related to a recent photo. They start a topic, “Restorers’ Notes: Fourier Filters”, or “Restorers’ Notes: GIMP” to discuss their successful (or otherwise) experience with the new thing.
I think with something like this it would operate just like a normal post: if you are sufficiently interested in the topic you put your two bob’s worth in, if not you simply don’t. But the name of the post alerts restorers that they are the intended audience.
Perhaps the Moderator has some ideas on this: whether something has been tried before, whether they can see any problems, or whether they might have any ideas about the best form for it.
Cheers,
Peter
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Many thanks for this (especially the blending modes!). I'll certainly try this out on a 'scratched' photo. Anything that reduces the cloning/patching work is very welcome!
Mike
A few tips and tricks I've read about. Note I use Photoshop CC, I do not know the features of other programs, but I'm sure they have the equivalent.
Finding white and black points. (highlight & shadows)
1. Curves adjustment layer.
2. pulling the bar/line down
3. the last colors to show is your white. (Make sure it's part of the picture, not damages)
4. pull the bar/line up
5. the last colors to show is your blacks. (Again, make sure it isn't damages.)
Finding middle grey:
1. Create new Layer
2. Fill with 50% grey
3. set the blending mode to Difference
4. create Threshold adjustment layer
5. mover slider all the way to the left. (picture will be completely white)
6. slowly begin moving it back to the right.
7. The first colors to show up is your middle grey.
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Hi Peter,
I think together you and HandyPandy have got things figured out. I like the idea of occasional 'restorers notes' posts per photo (point 1) but I like HandyPandy's idea that these should preerably contain a link to a 'note, question, etc.' in the subforum http://www.rootschat.com/forum/resources-tips-tutorials/ (http://www.rootschat.com/forum/resources-tips-tutorials/) rather than having a 'full text' discussion interspersed with the restores. People who request restores (and many restorers) are interested in seeing new restores but not in 'geeky' discussions of restoration techniques used. Putting these in the sub-forum with a 'restorers notes' link on the photo thread is a good idea.
For restorer's questions, tips, etc. not related to recent photos (point 2), the same applies. We can just start a new topic in the subforum. People who are interested in the topic can contribute.
I'll run this past the mods and ask for their advice.
Mike
Apologies if I’ve cut across the ideas of others. I wrote this before reading the more recent posts. Rather than rewrite it I’ll post it as first written.
Mike, one way of going about it might be to have a series of occasional posts interleaved with the normal ones, entitled “Restorers’ Notes” or some such, perhaps with a subtitle describing the main thing discussed. Examples might include such things as:
1. An interesting/unusual/difficult picture is posted. A restorer starts a topic, “Restorer’s Notes: Scanner Stripes” to begin a discussion on the picture, techniques used etc - with links to and from the particular photo post which gave rise to the discussion.
2. A restorer starts using a different program or technique, not necessarily related to a recent photo. They start a topic, “Restorers’ Notes: Fourier Filters”, or “Restorers’ Notes: GIMP” to discuss their successful (or otherwise) experience with the new thing.
I think with something like this it would operate just like a normal post: if you are sufficiently interested in the topic you put your two bob’s worth in, if not you simply don’t. But the name of the post alerts restorers that they are the intended audience.
Perhaps the Moderator has some ideas on this: whether something has been tried before, whether they can see any problems, or whether they might have any ideas about the best form for it.
Cheers,
Peter