What you need to fix a photo

[tallted]

Hi,
I am not sure if what I am about doing is amazing, but it may be something you will like.
It will probably take me a few more hours to come up with something. I will send it when I think you may enjoy it.
Ted

[deadants]

I have Paint Shop Pro 9 - is this good enough to use for dabbling with my old photos?  I would love to have a go.

Hi Lloydy,
        PSP9 is more than adequate to do this sort of work. The are hundreds of online tutorials for PSP here's a good place to start http://www.psplinks.com/content/Photo_Retouching.html

when scanning a photograph, how do I know how many dpi that it's been scanned at? 

When you do a scan, the software that came with your scanner should allow you to adjust the level of resolution you want to scan at. I have attached a pic of the panel that comes up when I do a scan. You can see where it says output resolution 300dpi. I can set it to scan as low as 72dpi and as high as 1200dpi. Your software should have settings like this somewhere. Sometimes you have to click the advanced button to get to these settings.

I have read some of the other threads on here and noticed that people have been advised to scan their photos at 300 dpi or more.  I have a Hewlett Packard scanner - ScanJet 2100C

The higher the resolution the higher the detail. Also the higher the file size. So when you scan your files at 300dpi, make sure you save  them as a jpeg and not tiff or your files sizes will be huge. Remember, you can only post images on this forum up to 300kb.

deadants

[Lloydy]

Hi deadants

Thank you for the links to all those tutorials.  There is certainly lots in there to keep me occupied!!!

I have got a couple of old black and white photos that I want to have a fiddle with, so I will remember to adjust the dpi when I scan them (now I know how to do it!)


Cheers

Jan

[deadants]

There is one more thing I should have mentioned about scanning, that is "preview. Don't just scan a full A4, there should be a preview button. This does an initial scan to see where the document is on the platen. Once you have done your preview you can select the specific area of the photo or document. Then you hit the scan button.

[Lloydy]

Thank you for the "PREVIEW" advice deadants.  I have noticed the preview button but never used it  


Jan

[ringwarrior]

Having worked in the photo imaging industry I have Adobe Photoshop CS which is a great program but very expensive (c£350) and has a lot of features that are difficult to use and others that only a pro publisher would want.
I can really recommend Adobe Photo Deluxe which was given away with DSCs a few years ago. It is realy user friendly and has good online instructions. great for a beginner with auto balance, instant fix and a good clone tool.
It has been discontinued in favour of Photoshop Elements but is well worth looking out for.

[deadants]

Hi ringwarrior,
  Yes photo deluxe was pretty good. As you point out Photoshop elements has replaced it as the home user software. I did find these copies of Deluxe on ebay. http://tinyurl.com/8jscf

[Zeb]

If you can't afford the full Adobe Photoshop CS they do a cut-down version called Photoshop Elements which is also a lot cheaper.  It still has a vast range of functions and features to get lost in but at a fraction of the price.  Even still, its a large program and as mentioned before, best way is trial and error.  You've always got UNDO and as long as you save with a different name before changing anything you can always abort and reload the backup.

Adobe Photoshop CS: Windows & Mac

Adobe Photoshop Elements: Windows Mac

Corel Paint Shop Pro X: Windows

DPI means Dots Per Inch.  The larger the number the more detail.  The default value for printing is 300dpi.

[Keith Bateman]

Hi All,

I found this link a bit ago - but went with trail and error at the start instead - no patience!!

Anyway - now I know a little - this makes much more sense - and some useful shortcuts.

http://graphicssoft.about.com/od/photoshop/l/bllps501a.htm

For Photoshop versions.

Cheers

Keith