![]() ![]() That helped a lot, but it still had a strong red cast. ![]() Choosing the Black Point icon I clicked in the darkest black point in my image to set that as the image’s new black point. To keep this adjustment separate from the white point, I added a new Levels adjustment layer. With the white point is set, I needed to adjust the Black Point. You can try to click in different spots around your image to see how adjusting the image based on various white points affects your image. In my image, the original framed edge of the photo should have been white, so I clicked that frame edge with the White Point cursor. Next, choosing on the White Point icon from the Levels panel, I moved the white point cursor into the image in search of the ideal white spot. In this case Auto was fairly useless, so I applied Undo to begin again with no adjustment. With a Levels adjustment, before doing anything else, I usually just quickly click Auto to see if it miraculously does the trick. By always applying adjustments as an Adjustment Layer, the photo all the adjustments are able to be continually adjusted and removed. Of the many ways to make adjustments, I generally prefer to start with Levels from the Adjustment Layer pop-up in Layers panel. My mom didn’t want to part with this last photo record of our cowhand days, so instead of transporting it 3000 miles round-trip to scan it properly, I merely steadied and squared off my iPhone and snapped a decent shot and then brought the snap into Photoshop. While all three adjustments can be combined within one Levels adjustment layer, by keeping each on its own Adjustment Layer it’s simple to isolate (and tweak) each of the shifts separately. There are many things to try within Levels to fix images, but in this case, just applying the three White/Black/Grey Point adjustments within Levels restored most of the color and detail. The years had faded this early-era full-color photo into almost sepia tones. Yep, Westerns were a big thing in the 60’s, and I sure loved those duds. On my last visit to my mother, amongst the photos pinned to her kitchen wall was this long-faded giddy-up snap up of little me and my big brother Arthur. This means that the goal is often to “rescue” the life of a photo, and not to completely restore an image to its original state. By leaving just a little of the aging process in place, it’s possible to rescue the contents and details in a photo, without relinquishing its nostalgic impact. In the same way that “over cleaning” a Renaissance painting can drain all the life out of a classic, over the years I’ve found that in many cases it’s best to partially restore a photo, rather than attempt to make it appear entirely new again. While the perfect restoration may still be time-consuming, this mini-series focuses on a few of my quicker fixes to recapture most of the life hidden within aging family snapshots. Although occasionally a photo is worthy of me devoting a professional level of retouching attention, in most cases the request is simply, “if it doesn’t take too long, can you do something so I can see it again?”Įspecially with Photoshop tools being constantly improved and updated, there are limitless approaches that you can take to “fix” photos. As the representative digital professional in my family, I’m frequently tapped to rescue an aging photo. ![]()
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