Repair of photographic images
Imagine a night, while trying to sort out the old attic, amidst the darkness and the dust collected for years, one discovers an old photo album, the version of early last century, a multimedia database for the home … A photo album containing mostly black and white photos of the elderly family occasions such as weddings, meetings, celebrations, trips around the world, full of sentimental value, and even – Why not – of historical interest. After all, the end of the day, the history of the world is a part of world history – view from a viewpoint philosophical.
But unfortunately, as happens with the media storage technology age – the time left their mark on the photos. For example, marks visible on the surface, dust and scratches and discoloration and fading constantly inhabit the surface of each of their valuable photos: wet, photo-hungry germs are feeding the appetite of departure of each of the edges of photos, the slow but steady progression toward an irreversible victory, turning history into oblivion.
Unless … Oh, yes, using the technology of magic, a keen eye and a steady hand can be reset status quo, historical photo, remove or correct the side effects, signs and scars of this battle has time to spare. The good news is that there is no need for expensive technology not rocket science is needed: Any good old image editing application with a scanner to do – and if they feel nostalgia for the kinds of storage old media, printer photo paper will complement the task. So let's say, you have the photos, has the technology … What next? How continuing, rapid and effective enough to restore any kind of printed images? Are there any tricks that you should keep in mind that can help achieve this goal?
Well, the answer is yes and no. Despite the power tools we have in these days, even our computers from home (Adobe Photoshop for Windows and Mac, and Gimp for Linux as a prime example), can easily perform a number of stunning photography features digital restoration of old photos is still closely related to a users ability and artistic eye, as well as their knowledge for good and effective use of enforcement tools.
For example, there are built-in filters in Photoshop, which automatically remove dust and small scratches: some smart image recognition algorithm works there, which recognizes the unwanted items through the identification of irregular fluctuations in the pixel mapping bitmap color depth. But this only works relatively well, since the underlying algorithm is not lossless: the stronger the filter is applied, more loss of image quality in terms of sharpness and detail. It is also heavily dependent on the contents of the image. Dust, scratches and other elements are more easily removed from the uniform zones of shadow picture, ie when the photos are imagining things like walls, surfaces, sky, clouds, etc., that of, say, a landscape with many details, a painting or a pattern photos containing a number of people.
Regarding the use of tools like the powerful Adobe Photoshop Clone Stamp, or the new Spot Healing Brush, which allows the sampling and copying pixel level when it comes to big images damaged, the intuition of user is the only serious to consider. For example, could be the case that a picture is much damaged, that parts of it are literally lost – OK, if it is a landscape with flowers, sampling was working fine, but when the damaged part contains elements of a particular shape, like the faces of people or other parts of body, interior design or architectural elements, then copy, sampling and field healing is not enough. Sometimes, the user would to re-create these elements, the identification and copies of similar data from elsewhere in the table could also be possible, but most of the time the angles and light tones would be different. And especially when the damaged areas are the elements that affect people, like faces, hands, animals, etc., or even use objects everyday as chairs, or clothing with special details such as shoes, etc. The task of recovery is more difficult: these objects need recreation, aesthetics is that they are well integrated into our visual perception of "how things seem."
When the desired result is an image aesthetically correct and thus usable in many respects, there is no magic formula in which the tools in what order and what functions should be applied restorer when working on the task. Moreover when the task is to put color in black and white photos, especially with people in them, which involves large areas of skin. A color smooth skin is something that all professional photographers and picture editors are looking for, especially when images are printed. Put a picture in color and black White is one of the most difficult tasks a restorer of digital images is performed. Imagination and creative intuition and experience and advanced knowledge of the tools available very often necessary to achieve a single result bearable. As there is a very thin easy to cross before a beautiful face photo black and white becomes pink, red or yellow opaque a foreigner, such is the fine line that can differentiate a good photo restoration efforts insufficient sold as an experience.
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CardsMadeEasy,
The Business Cards Company
VitalSkills for Photographers VSP11: Watercolor Edge