How to Restore Worn Photographs in Photoshop
Over time, photos become worn looking. This happens due to age, insufficient storage and preservation and use. Many people think that when the photos become wrinkled, torn, discolored or faded there is nothing they can do about it. But there is. With Adobe Photoshop you can restore old, worn photographs and make new prints.
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Instructions
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Scan photos onto your computer disk drive with a scanner. Place the photo in the scanner and adjust the settings to the maximum dpi levels so that the photos will look as close to their original settings as possible. Save the photos as ".jpg" files on your computer's harddrive or an external drive.
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Open Photoshop. Go to the "File" tab and click "Open." Find the photo files. Open one picture at a time or, if you choose, all the photos you will be working on. Enlarge the first photo so you can see all the areas that need work in great detail. Select the blur tool. Choose a small size brush stroke. It's better to use a small brush stroke and zoom in on the photo than a large brush and a minimal size of zooming for the photo.
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Zoom in on all areas of the photo that have crease lines, scratch marks and other inconsistent lines. Using smooth strokes carefully blur the lines so that the surrounding colors overtake the scratch or crease and smooth it out. Zoom out after working on a section to see how it looks from a distance. Continue until all the creases and scratch marks have been blurred and blended in with the rest of the photo.
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Go into the "Tools" tab bar. Select the "Color adjustment" tab. There are several items you can adjust: hue, saturation, amounts of red, green, blue, black and white. Play first with the hue and saturation tabs. Adjust the settings until you find a balance that you like and that looks like the original coloring. If such settings cannot be reached with the hue and saturation alone, play with the individual color settings.
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Print out the photo. Look at the details and see if it looks like the original. If there are still problem areas, circle or mark these areas on the photo and go back to rework the problems with all the tools provided.
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Tips & Warnings
Don't oversaturate a photo, or the color will look fake.
