RETOUCHING PHOTOGRAPHS IN THE COMPUTER- PART 1 by D'Lynn Waldron, PhD c.2002

	Retouching and Restoring Old Photos: a brief summary of tools by D'Lynn Waldron ©2002 The following useful tools can be found in Photoshop and most similar programs can be used to retouched and restore photograph. Clone Tool can cover over cracks, scratches, specks and spots. Gaussian Blur Filter can blend out mars in areas that do not have important details you want to retain. If you have a large area like a sky, with a lot of specks, etc., you can carefully select it and then run Gaussian Blur . The preview window will show you when you have the proper combination of settings to even out the mars. If there are clouds or other details you want to preserve, use as mild a dose of Gaussian Blur.as possible. Variations facility under Adjust is the easiest way to resaturate and rebalance colors. You can see the possible changes in a set of preview windows, and select what looks best. Brightness & Contrast facility under Adjust can be used to give low contrast, flat-looking pictures more depth and pop. Unsharp Mask filter is the best solution for images that are not in sharp focus. The preview window shows exactly what you will get with any combination of settings. Use Unsharp Mask after the corrections listed above. Always save your raw scan, then also your cleaned scan, and finally save your tweaked scan. As the state of the art and your own skills improve, you may want to go back and redo a scan from either the raw, or the cleaned version. All of these images were created in Adobe Photoshop.

D'Lynn Waldron THE IMAGE PERFECTED copyright 2002
This photo of a Native American was retouched with the Photoshop clone tool and some painting.
This photograph of a bullfighter had major repainting on the face.