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Digital Photo Restoration Understanding the Edit Tools Jack & Sue Drafahl 25-year old Faded Ektachrome slide. I? i* j. j. K L :'L • L 5 Sli itsdh Color balanced image using Variations in Photoshop. ^^••H H Increased color saturation in Photoshop. 54 RANCEFINDER SEPTEMBER 1999

Digital Photo Restoration - jackandsue.com 09 Digital Ph… · Digital Photo Restoration Understanding the Edit Tools Jack & Sue Drafahl 25-year old Faded Ektachrome slide. I? ij

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Page 1: Digital Photo Restoration - jackandsue.com 09 Digital Ph… · Digital Photo Restoration Understanding the Edit Tools Jack & Sue Drafahl 25-year old Faded Ektachrome slide. I? ij

Digital PhotoRestorationU n d e r s t a n d i n g t h e E d i t T o o l s

Jack & Sue Drafahl

25-year old Faded Ektachrome slide.

I? i*j. j. KL :'L • L

5 Sliitsdh

Color balanced image using Variations in Photoshop.

^ •̂•H

H

Increased color saturation in Photoshop.

54 RANCEFINDER • SEPTEMBER 1999

Page 2: Digital Photo Restoration - jackandsue.com 09 Digital Ph… · Digital Photo Restoration Understanding the Edit Tools Jack & Sue Drafahl 25-year old Faded Ektachrome slide. I? ij

WHEN WE FIRST STARTED ourtraditional photography business, weincorporated a stock photo agency aspart of it. As years passed, our stock filesincreased, and we accumulated imagesthat had been damaged and could notbe sent out for sales. Many of theseimages were just round-filed, but thosewith important image content werefiled in a folder we labeled "Salvage."We had expectations that eventuallytechnological advancements wouldallow us to fix these images.

Along came digital technology toprovide us the necessary tools to fixthese important images. At first it wasslow going, but as computers gainedspeed and editing programs becamemore efficient, we expanded our use ofdigital. Thanks to versatile digital edit-ing tools, what took hours and manydollars to fix now takes minutes and afew million byes of computer data. Themain problem facing photographerstoday is knowing what can be donedigitally and learning how to do it.

Most Commonly Used Tools

Let's open up our digital toolbox andexplain how these tools work. Thenwe'll show you a few examples of howthey can be used to repair images. Notethat the toolbox applies to all programs,and uses the same basic controls foundin almost every image-edit program; i.e.,eyedropper, magnifier, clone, select,paint bucket, foreground, background,etc. All manufacturers seem to use thesame basic tools, but just give them vari-ous names. But when learning a pro-gram, they are the first burtons you tryto leam how to use. Then one normallyworks the pull-down menus.

Clone Tool: The clone tool is a minia-ture copy and paste tool all wrapped intoone. The first part selects the area to copyand the second drops it on the mainimage. This is all accomplished with asingle click of the mouse button. The sizeof the area to be copied can be increased,reduced or feathered so the pasted imageblends in well. You can drag the clonetool along a path or drop in one selectionat a time. If you want to minimize theeffect, you can also set a transparencyoption to less than 100%, so that not allof the image is copied. The key to usingthis tool is correctly matching the size ofthe clone tool to the area to be fixed. If itis too big it will spill into other areas, andif it is too small is will leave an unevenpattern in the editing path.

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Select Tools: The mouse is used tochoose the select tools that vary from arectangular shape to freeform. Onceareas are selected, they can be copied tothe clipboard and pasted back intoanother part of the image. They caneven be saved as "loadable" selections.

The magic wand is a special tool thatselects pixels similar to the one youtouch. You can expand or limit thescope of the selection by allowing thewand to select similar values. For exam-ple, a setting of seven allows the wand

to select any pixels within seven pointsof the original selection. This tool isgreat for selecting the sky.

A new tool in PhotoShop 5.0 is themagnetic lasso selection tool. With thistool you can drag your mouse pointalong an edge and the selection toolgrabs everything up to the edge of thesubject. With this tool you can adjustthe range to be wide or very narrow. It isgreat for tracing around difficult subjectsthat cross a multitude of tonal values.

Copy and Paste Tools: These tools

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Page 3: Digital Photo Restoration - jackandsue.com 09 Digital Ph… · Digital Photo Restoration Understanding the Edit Tools Jack & Sue Drafahl 25-year old Faded Ektachrome slide. I? ij

Phofo of wrinkled print.Photo flattened on Agfa DuoScan 1200 scanner.

Restored image using a variety of done brush sizes.

Negative damaged in processing. Image restored using Photoshop done tool.

are an extension of the select tools.Once an area is selected, it can either bemodified or copied to the clipboard,and then pasted to a different part ofthe image. This tool is useful if largeareas of an image are missing and newsections need to be copied from a simi-lar portion of the image.

Feathering: This function is usuallyused with the selection tools. After aselection is made, you can feather it sothat the line between the selected andnon-selected portions of the imageblends and doesn't provide a jaggededge. The width of the feather can beadjusted according to the desired effect.The more the feather, the softer theblend between the selection and the

image underneath.Masking Tools: These tools are a little

more difficult to use, but have excellentapplications. When you select an area,some programs automatically make themask, while others require an additionalstep. Once the mask is made, you canedit inside the mask without the worryof spilling onto the main image. Themask can also be saved to a file andrecalled if further editing inside themask is required later.

Fastbit or QuikEdit Menu: When youhave to edit only one small portion of animage, you can use this menu to selectonly the area you need to edit. Since thisarea is small, it quickly loads into mem-ory. If you had to edit using the entire

file, it would take longer for loading andsaving. After making the necessary edits,you can put the edited portion of theimage back into the main file.

(Note: PhotoShop just dropped theQuikEdit menu from their newest ver-sion of PhotoShop 5. Corel Paint 9 doesuse a low-resolution open that allowsyou to edit in low res and then applythe editing to a higher resolution ver-sion. Micrographx Picture Publisher usesa Fastbit function where you can importsections of a photo and then save themout to the whole image. Looking atsome of the others, none of them seemto agree on how to use this function.The best way for someone buying newsoftware to find out if it exists in theirs is

56 RANCEFINDER • SEPTEMBER 1999

Page 4: Digital Photo Restoration - jackandsue.com 09 Digital Ph… · Digital Photo Restoration Understanding the Edit Tools Jack & Sue Drafahl 25-year old Faded Ektachrome slide. I? ij

to go to the help function and look for"low resolution edit," "QuickEdit""Fastbits" or any term indicating aquick or fast method for editing images.The function is important for someonethat is a little short on RAM. If youhave more than 256MB, these func-tions are not necessary.)

Full Image Editing Tools: The curveeditor, histogram, brightness control,saturation adjustment, and color bal-ancing-tools are primarily used tomake full image corrections. If neces-sary, they can also be used on selectedportions as well.

Plug-ins: These specialized tools addspecial enhancements to the imagesuch as sharpness, smoothness, edgeenhancement, grain reduction, anddozens of other incredible tasks notpossible in a traditional darkroom.Most software manuals have examplesof each tool and how it can be used onan image.

Toolbox: Each software package willother tools for digital editing that canbe found in the toolbox. You shouldlearn how they all work, keeping inmind that practice makes perfect.

Common Problems

The following situations are some ofthe more common problems that canbe fixed using the digital darkroom. Ineach case we will describe the problem,the tools used to fix the image, and aquick synopsis of the procedure usedto repair the image.

Scratches: Scratches can be found onnegatives, slides, and prints. If they arevery large, they will be difficult to fix in atraditional darkroom, so digital is theanswer. Once the image is scanned, theclone tool is selected. Set the size to atleast twice the width of the scratch. Asyou move along the scratch, copy andpaste adjoining information on top ofthe scratch. Make sure that as you movealong the scratch, you are always select-ing similar information to copy over thescratch. We recommend the use of theUndo function, until you feel extremelycomfortable using this tool.

Cuts and Holes: This problem is verysimilar to a scratch except that the widthof the problem is usually greater than ascratch. The problem can be solvedusing the clone tool. When the cut is

very large, you may have to use theselection tool to select a similar sizedarea near the problem and move it ontop of the cut. This is accomplished withthe copy and paste tools. It's also a goodidea to feather the selection before it'spasted onto the problem area.

Wires and lines: Frequently, thissubject can be treated as though it wasa straight scratch. The clone tool is bestfor this task, and should be set to afeathered size about twice the width ofthe line. To insure that your editingdoes not bleed over into critical areas,you can use the select tool to make amask slightly larger than the line. Thisway, if you do wander from the linetoo much, the mask will block theediting beyond the adjoining area.

Burned photos: This image will prob-ably have a combination of scratches,cuts, holes and missing parts. The largeholes and missing areas will require theuse of the copy and paste function. Ifyou can't find a similar area to paste overthe missing section, you may have toscan in a similar image and use selectedparts as a filler. The smaller problems canusually be fixed using the done tool.

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Page 5: Digital Photo Restoration - jackandsue.com 09 Digital Ph… · Digital Photo Restoration Understanding the Edit Tools Jack & Sue Drafahl 25-year old Faded Ektachrome slide. I? ij

Original image of train station with wire in it.

Removing wires with Photoshop's done tool.

MCml PMOTOMU

Restored image.

Top left:Color negative with large scratch.Scanned with Nikon LS-2000 scanner.

Middle image:Using done tool in Photoshop to fill inscratch with data adjacent to it.

Corrected image.

58 RANCEFINDER • SEPTEMBER 1999

Page 6: Digital Photo Restoration - jackandsue.com 09 Digital Ph… · Digital Photo Restoration Understanding the Edit Tools Jack & Sue Drafahl 25-year old Faded Ektachrome slide. I? ij

Pictures Cut into Pieces: This prob-lem is a little more difficult to repairand may be beyond hope if it is cutinto too many small pieces. For thesake of discussion, our example hasless than a half dozen tears. The photoshould be reassembled as close as pos-sible on the scanner, making sure thatno piece lays on top of another. Usingone piece as a base, the other pieces areselected, copied, pasted, and movedinto place. Continue this method untilthe entire image is reassembled. Theclone tool can then be used to mendthe area between each piece. Any miss-ing pieces should be copied and pastedfrom similar parts of the image.

Processing Errors: If the processingerror has an overall effect to the image,the tone curve editor will allow you tochange color, density, and contrast to allparts of the image. The fastest way to cor-rect this error is using the auto levelsfunction. The program will look for thedarkest tone and assign black, and do theopposite for the lightest tone. If theresults don't meet your expectations, youcan undo auto levels and manually adjustuntil you have corrected the problem.

If processing has caused streaks,stains or the film was touched in dry-ing, you will need to use the clone andcopy/paste tools. Select areas near thedamaged area and paste them on topof the problem. You should mask thedamaged area first, so that your editingdoes not spill into adjoining areas.

Faded Images: This problem eventu-ally haunts most traditional photoimages, and in the past, repair consist-ed of image duplication using colorcorrection. With digital repair, you cancolor correct, change image density,and then realign the contrast curvewith the tone editor.

You can now sort through your oldphotos and give them new life thanksto the digital darkroom. The key tosuccess is practicing and developing asystem for solving each problem one ata time. The more images you repair,the better you will be at deciding howto fix future images. Each time you re-pair an image, it should take less timeand your techniques will improve overtime. The trial and error of your firstfew images will become the buildingblocks that make you a proficient digi-tal editor.

Jack and Sue Drafahl are freelance journalists/pho-tographers living in the Pacific Northwest. Theyhave owned and operated a custom lab and servicebureau, Image Concepts, for many years. They canbe reached at: [[email protected]].

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