Digital Photo Restoration: Bringing Memories To Life
Photography has now been around for over a century. If you're a member of Generation X, it's possible for you to find photos of your great-grandparents or even your great-great grandparents (this writer has seen a photo of her great-great grandmother in her black silk beaded Edwardian finery). Some of these photos date back as far the First World War, and being able to see them is a very special way to link with the past. It's amazing to see family likenesses turning up in old photos.
But often, these old photos have been damaged over the years. Scratching, rips, fading from sunlight and bad storage can all have terrible effects on how these valuable family heirloom photographs actually look. While it may be touching to actually see the photo of grandma that grandpa took to war with him in his wallet, it won't be in terrific condition now. And there's no way to get hold of the original film to reprint.
Thank goodness for the tools made available by the modern world of digital photos. Digital methods make restoration of old photos much easier than it used to be. Now those old photos can be restored to their former glory.
Digital photo restoration is achieved by scanning the old photo to be restored into a computer then using one of several software packages to manipulate the image on-screen to all of its former glory - and then some. You can do some digital photo restoration yourself at home if you are familiar with advanced photo editing tools and have the time to do this, but most of us will prefer to take advantage of the many digital photo restoration services that are available. The most important thing, whether you're doing the digital photo restoration yourself or using the services of a digital photo restoration company, is to make sure the image is scanned correctly. Clean the glass plate of your scanner with a good cleaner designed for camera lenses. After all, if you're going to go to the effort of restoring your photos, it's best to make sure that the digital image hasn't got an extra thumbprint or piece of lint to deal with. You will also need to make sure that the scanned image is scanned at a high resolution (you will need to preview the image to make sure that you've got it right) and that you have placed the image correctly on the scanner glass. If you are using a digital photo restoration company, then scanning the image in is the most you will have to do (of course, if you are taking your old photos into a physical shop that offers digital photo restoration, you may not even have to do this). However, if you are planning on doing the digital photo restoration yourself, you will need to crop the white space around the image - and resist the temptation to do any tinkering or correction before you've saved the image. Scan it, save it and only after that should you start to correct it. One delightful feature that is made possible by digital photo restoration is that the old sepia tones of family photos don't have to stay that way. Now the old photos can not only have the scratches and tears removed but the sepia tones can be replaced by black and white. And that's not all! Digital photo restoration can enhance the original shots by delicate tinting to add colour. The process of adding colour as a part of the digital photo restoration really makes your family heritage come to life. Just say you've got a photo of your great-grandmother in an evening gown. Using family traditions ("You got that red hair from your grandmother, dear") and maybe old diaries and letters ("I wore my emerald green gown, as dear Richard says it makes my auburn hair look ravishing"), you'll be able to see what she looked like on the day that the photo was taken.
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